The Butterfly Effect
by thermodynamic
Summary: Jasmine Curtis never thought that having a female role model was important. In retrospect, finding her one should've been the least of her social worker's concerns.
1. The Beginning of the End

_Is that why they call me a sullen girl, a sullen girl?_

 _They don't know I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea_

 _But he washed me 'shore, and he took my pearl_

 _And left an empty shell of me_

— Sullen Girl, Fiona Apple

* * *

 _August 6th, 1965_

"You gotta be home by... four, right?"

"Yeah," I said, raising the joint to my lips, blowing out a puff of smoke, and lying back down on the carpet. The room reeked sweet, even though we'd cracked open a window, and it was so swelteringly hot that I didn't want to move one single limb— or maybe that was just the kush. We had Elvis blaring so loud, half the neighborhood probably vibrated from her tinny radio. "Social worker's comin' to visit, and Darry's fixin' to flip shit if the place ain't spotless when she shows."

"So—" Sylvia's rouged lips curled into a smirk as she took a drag of her own joint, sprawled out on her bed— "shouldn't you be cleanin' it up with them?"

"Sure," I said with a shrug, "but I'm always cleanin' it up by myself. They can deal." If I hadn't been as high as a kite, I could've kept that whine going for a good long while— about how all three of those boys seemed to think that their live-in maid would wash their clothes, cook them eggs and bacon for breakfast, and do it all with a smile on her face— but I was content to close my eyes and forget about my problems for now. Especially forget about how Darry would really flip shit if he figured out just what I was doing over at Sylvia's.

"You could help me clean," Sylvia said, gesturing towards the piles of strewn clothes and makeup. "My mom barged up here at two in the goddamn morning, cussin' up a storm, 'cause apparently this place ain't good enough for her new man. Sorry— my new _stepdaddy_. You're so lucky you don't have to live with a skank like that."

"I mean, mine's dead." I fingered the necklace Mom had left me, soothed by the cool gold under my fingers, and forced a blank stare onto my face. "But she got on my nerves a lot, too, what the hell. You just thought she was great 'cause she baked you cookies and listened to how awful all your boyfriends were."

"God, hon, I'm sorry." Sylvia clambered off the bed and threw her arms around me; I about gagged on the smell of grass and cheap body spray mixed together, but I didn't have the heart to push her away. "Me an' my huge fuckin' mouth."

"I'm not that fragile." I patted her a few times on the back, and fortunately, she let go. "Not gonna burst into tears whenever someone forgets that I'm Little Orphan Annie now."

"Well, I still miss your mom, annoying or not," Sylvia said. "She told me I wasn't dyin' when I first got my monthlies and everything. Remember how she used to call us her twins?"

Nobody could ever mistake us for sisters, much less twins; the two of us looked nothing alike. Sylvia had blonde hair that she refused to cut (well, I'd bleached it blonde in her kitchen sink, but still blonde), while mine was a mess of loose, awkwardly-cropped brown curls. She was long-winter-indoors pale where I was tan, and her angular face was a sharp contrast to my rounder one; the only thing we had in common was dark brown eyes. But we'd been inseparable since the second grade, and Mom's nickname had stuck. "Remember she could even make Dallas sit down and shut up? I miss _that_." I took another, longer drag on the roach and swallowed a cough. "Speak of the devil. I thought you said he was comin' over."

Sylvia scowled so hard you'd think I'd asked her to vacuum something, and raised her hand to show me her ringless fingers. "We're done. And this time, I fuckin' mean it."

"Threw that class ring at him again?"

"Hit that fucker right smack in the middle of his forehead. I should've keyed his car up good too, while I was at it."

"That fucker," I echoed. "The hell did he do now?" Rolling another joint held my attention more than the details, honestly, because I'd seen this play out the same way for the past year. Dallas marked his territory on people like a dog pissing on a fire hydrant, and Sylvia wasn't any exception; they'd be back together by next weekend, if he didn't show up at her door with a wilted bouquet and a rubber before then. There was something magnetic about him, something that made her always want to see what shit he'd pull next. Most of the time, he just made me nauseous.

"You know Angela Shepard, right?"

"I know _of_ her." I couldn't help my grimace— she sure had some reputation for a girl who'd just finished the eighth grade. Apparently she tore through older men, ran her own side hustle dealing prescription benzos, and carried a blade around— even Tim and Curly couldn't control her all that well. "And this is goin' exactly where I think it is, huh."

"She's been sniffin' after him like a bitch in heat, yeah." If she wasn't careful, she was going to burn a hole straight through her skirt. "Tim broke his nose in— wish I could've been there to watch."

"Don't blame you." I dropped some ashes on the carpet and desperately searched for a way to change the subject. "Shit, I need new clothes."

"You don't say." Sylvia gave me a painfully condescending look. "Your brothers don't let you outta the house unless they approve, huh?"

I surveyed my outfit— dowdy skirt, scuffed oxfords, a blouse I'd had back in seventh grade— and gave her a death glare in return. "You see how sexy you can dress with _three_ of them around. Your only one's too strung out on pole half the time to tell if you're walkin' out the door naked." Then I shook my head. "No, dammit, I didn't mean it that way. If I show up at home reekin' of pot, Darry's gonna skin me like a bobcat."

(Mom would've let me dress how I pleased. But I didn't really want to think about that.)

"Lemme see what I can find." Sylvia got up to rifle through a heap of skirts next to the vanity, and pulling out one that was more scrap than fabric. "Go get my perfume— the good kind— and spray yourself all over. It'll mask the scent. I think."

Needless to say, I was late for the social worker.

* * *

"Jasmine! I was wondering if I'd get a chance to see you this afternoon."

The social worker's sugary-sweet smile wasn't matched by Darry, who glared at me like I was the driver that ran over his first puppy. I wiped the sweat off of my forehead, trying to look as though I hadn't sprinted halfway across the neighborhood to burst into our den, but my short, rapid breaths gave me away. "I'm sorry, ma'am," I said with a faint smile of my own. Miss Edwards wanted to see an innocent schoolgirl, and I knew how to play the part. "I was just _so_ busy volunteerin' at the animal shelter, I clean lost track of time."

"Animal shelter?" Soda mouthed behind her back; I shrugged. Ponyboy just shot me a grin.

"Well, if that ain't the sweetest thing, hon," she gushed, brushing her massive amount of teased hair away from her face. "I could just eat you up. Darrel, would you mind if I had a little chat with Jasmine alone? I'll be done in a tick."

"Of course not, Miss Edwards," Darry said hesitantly, and she wasted no time taking me by the arm and leading me into my room— and shutting the door behind us. Never a good sign.

"There's no need to be nervous, dear— have a seat," she said, sitting down on my desk chair; reluctantly, I perched myself on the edge of my bed. I didn't like this woman in my room, even though it was clean— at Darry's insistence— and she'd already inspected every square inch of the house. "I just wanted to ask you a few questions. How are you doing?"

"Fine, ma'am," I said, making sure to add the 'ma'am.' She didn't have me fooled. Behind the motherly demeanor, this woman had the power to do anything she wanted with me.

"That's just great." Yet another megawatt smile. "Goodness knows it must be hard growin' up with all these brothers, though. I had four myself, but at least there were a couple sisters in the mix."

"It's not so bad, ma'am." I twisted my bedspread around my finger, idly wondering if she was judging how worn it looked.

"Well, of course not, but I'm sure there's been some challenges all the same." She put a hand on my shoulder, and it took every ounce of my self-control not to slap it away. "You're growin' into a young lady, without your mother around— but I'm sure Darrel is doin' what he can, under the circumstances. I didn't mean to imply otherwise."

Sure she didn't. "You're a real sweet girl, Jasmine," she continued before I could say a word, giving me a few pats. "Good grades in school— which I certainly hope you'll continue to earn in your sophomore year— and you haven't been gettin' into any trouble. I just want you to be in the best situation possible. That's my job."

"Ain't this the best situation already?" I asked as sweetly as I could, my palms clammy. "I mean. All of us together."

"If that's what you really want, dear." And on that ominous note, she got up from her chair and motioned me up, too. "I think we've spent long enough huddled in here!" she added with a loud, tinkly laugh. "Let's get back to the others, shall we?"

I followed her out, swallowing back some of my own bile. "Well, everything seems to be in order here, Darrel," she announced briskly as she strode into the living room again. "House is clean, the kids are fed, and you're up to date on all of the bills... Sodapop, you don't work too hard, you hear me? And mind your brother, Ponyboy and Jasmine. I'll see y'all next month."

"Yes'm," we chorused, and the second the door shut behind her, Darry dropped the phony niceness and turned straight on me.

"You hate animals."

"Maybe I wanted to give back to the community?"

"Uh-huh— dressed in a miniskirt?" he said, pointing an accusing finger at it. "Tell me where you were, and don't you dare give me that bull you fed Miss Edwards."

"At Sylvia's house," I said with a sigh— Darry was even better at ferreting out lies than Dad had been. "We kind of lost track of time. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" Here we go. "You've known about this appointment for weeks— no, scratch that, you were supposed to be here _before_ then to help clean this place up. How d'you think it looks when you stroll in half an hour late?"

"Bad."

"So why the hell weren't you here?" He dragged his hand through his hair. "I've had it with you and Ponyboy, I really have. The two of you don't ever think about anybody but yourselves."

"What did _I_ do?" Pony demanded, at the same time as I said, "If I didn't think about anybody but myself, this place sure would've been a lot less tidy for the social worker— not that I'm askin' for a thank you or nothing."

"Darry, listen, it was an accident," Soda swooped in before he could yell back, always the peacekeeper. "Jasmine didn't mean to be late— she ran all the way here. And quit raggin' on Pony for no reason."

"There's plenty of reason to rag on him," Darry said, but dropped it— probably because I was the far more pressing target. "Jasmine, I better not catch you skippin' out on any more meetings with the social worker. We're already on thin ice without you makin' her think I can't get y'all together for an hour, you hear me?"

"Fine," I bit out with as much venom as I could squeeze into one syllable.

"Take that shitty attitude out of your voice, or you're grounded. I mean it."

" _My_ shitty attitude?" I asked incredulously, my jaw clenched. "I _said_ I'm sorry already. You're the one who can't ever let an accident go."

"That's it, you are grounded," he said without mercy. "All weekend. Soda, I really don't wanna hear it."

Soda's mouth snapped shut, and I admitted defeat and snapped mine shut, too. Still thought the grounding was bullshit, but I knew that if I kept pushing, I'd probably be stuck in the house until my senior prom.

"I'm sick of the mouthin' off around here," Darry declared to no one in particular. "Is a little respect just too much to ask for?"

I elected to return to my room instead of answering that.

* * *

"I know you're in there, Jas."

"Exactly, and I'm takin' a bath, so buzz off." I sank deeper into the water, letting my hair fan out behind me in a dark wave, but of course Soda was chronically incapable of taking a hint.

"Darry's just stressed," he still told me through the bathroom door. "He doesn't mean to snap so bad. It's been real hard for him since Mom an' Dad died."

Right. That was always the excuse. 'Darry's just stressed since Mom and Dad died,' like the rest of us were peachy-keen since the accident. Goddamn, was he doing a great Mussolini impression lately— our parents' deaths gave him one hell of an opportunity to get his control freak on. Everyone had to obey his slightest command, or else listen to him go off about how lucky we were that he'd taken us in at all— that was, except for Soda. Soda could drop out of school after making straight F's, get tickets for speeding, even come home drunk, and Darry never so much as looked at him cross-eyed.

Not that I blamed Soda, though. It was impossible for anyone to stay mad at him. Even me.

"Social worker was runnin' her mouth off," he continued as I swirled my hand around in the suds. "He's worried. Thinks the state might want you in a girls' home."

"Sometimes that sounds better than this prison camp."

"Awh, c'mon, Jas." His voice took on a teasing note. "You'd hate it there. Who'd put food coloring in your eggs?"

"Exactly," I said, unable to stop my lips from twitching. "Nice, normal breakfasts. What's not to like?"

"Not havin' your beloved brothers— can I come in already? I'm hollerin' through solid wood."

I pulled the shower curtain all the way across and hugged my knees to my chest. "Fine."

He creaked the door open and possibly sat down on the toilet, though I couldn't tell. "Darry loves you, you know. A lot. You an' Pony both— that's why he's so hard on you."

"Yeah, well, guess I love him too," I grudgingly admitted. "Since when did you become family peacemaker?"

"Since forever, that's when. Y'all are such hotheads, gotta have someone around to crack a few jokes and kill the tension." His shadow leaned forward. The water was starting to get cold, with an oily film forming on top, but I still didn't feel like getting out. "Listen, Jas, I know you're mad at him right now, but you can't screw around with the social worker, okay? Darry means it when he says the state ain't thrilled 'bout him havin' custody 'cause he's so young— 'specially of a girl. So unless you wanna go live in a reform school, keep it zipped when she's here."

"She was givin' me the third degree today— I get it," I told the faucet, grimacing. "Don't hand that woman any more ammo than she already has."

"Darry's just tryna do what's best for us," he said, like it was a lesson learned by heart. "Keep the family together. So cut him some slack, will you?"

"Next you're gonna tell me I deserve to be grounded, too."

"Hey, it was _your_ yap that got you there. I tried to help you out, but no, you just had to be a smart mouth."

"Ugh." I rolled my eyes. "Easy for you to say. You could drag a dead body home and Darry wouldn't even yell, much less ground you."

"Boy, would that be weird if he did." I could practically hear him shudder. "I remember when Darry used to be cool— he'd slip me an' Dally an' Two-Bit beer on the weekends and distract Dad when I came in past curfew. I'm too old for his parenting act."

"What, and I'm not?" I scoffed. "You're only a year older than me."

"A year and four months, and don't you forget that, little sis."

I peeled back the curtain far enough to lob a sponge at him— and sadly, missed. "Got any more words of wisdom for me?"

"If you act real sweet and do some dishes for Darry, the Grinch _might_ just spring you Sunday."

"Please, like he lets us go anywhere on a school night." I half-heartedly started scrubbing at a rough patch of skin on my elbow. "Don't you have somethin' better to do on Friday than perv on your sister in the tub?"

He threw a hand towel at me, which harmlessly smacked against the curtain and fell to the bath mat. "You're right. I'll be enjoyin' my night out with Sandy at the Dingo, and you can have fun goin' to bed early with your teddy bear."

I was out of things to throw that wouldn't cause physical damage. "Get _lost_ , Sodapop."

Once he'd finally left, I drained the tub and wrapped a towel around myself, squeezing my hair dry. Then I smiled as I dug through the laundry hamper for the skirt I'd pulled off.

Soda wasn't the only one headed out tonight.

* * *

11/18/18: I feel like I should probably warn people just starting this story that it gets... a lot darker around chapter 6, and deals heavily with rape and child sexual abuse. Buckle up.


	2. Running Wild

Sylvia had warned me that the day Buck Merril played any music better than Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, or Loretta Lynn at his parties, Satan would be making snowmen in hell. Unfortunately for my sanity, I'd still decided to crash one.

"Who're _you_?" some girl asked as she pulled the door open and let out a loud, drunken giggle, gripping the front of my blouse to steady herself. The sound of those godawful tunes was hitting my ears with the force of a jackhammer, and I could already smell the cheap beer and even cheaper weed from the porch. Shit, Dallas's taste could never be called impeccable, but this place was really pushing it. "One of Buck's girls?"

I knew I looked different, at least older than fifteen, dressed in the clothes Sylvia had lent me, my lips painted bright, my eyes lined thick and black. Enough to belong here. "Yeah," I just said, extracting myself from her grip and elbowing my way inside. "One of Buck's girls."

It didn't take long for me to spot my target— Dallas's messy towhead glowed, even in the dim light and the crowd of grinding dancers, drunks stumbling around, couples slurpily making out on the staircase and in the darker corners. I grabbed a plastic cup of beer off of a nearby table and sidled over to where he was slumped on a couch, shot glass in hand, stupid smile on his face. "Shit, Jasmine, ain't it past your curfew?" he called as I approached, barking out a laugh. "The hell're you doin' here?"

"Came to see you." I took a sip of the tepid beer and swished it around in my mouth. "Guess it's my lucky night."

"I oughta take you home," Dallas mocked, downing the shot in one neat swallow, though him drunk behind the wheel was an even more terrifying thought than him sober behind the wheel. "Before Darry and Soda realize you left. Boy howdy, they'll beat me stupid if they find out I left you at a place like this— again."

"Like you're gonna."

"Nah, can't be assed." He shrugged and picked up another shot. "You ain't _my_ kid sister."

"Where's Angela?" slithered out of my mouth, though I'd certainly planned a more subtle approach. God, did this beer taste like shit, and it wasn't getting me near drunk enough for a conversation with Dallas. "Thought she'd be here."

"Grounded 'til the next century, accordin' to ol' Tim. I mean, knowin' her, she probably climbed right out the window the second he turned around—"

"Cut the shit," I said. When he was drunk like this, loose and floppy and talkative, I still saw the fourteen-year-old kid carving his name into our kitchen table, all knees and elbows. He didn't scare me. "Sylvia told me everything already— you've been screwin' around behind her back. For the thousandth time."

He snorted. "I ain't with Angela Shepard, that's for fucking sure. You really think I can't do better than some crazy bitch barely outta grade school?"

"Looks like Tim did a number on your nose," I said mildly, noticing that there was still dried blood crusted all over his face. "You sure that had nothin' to do with it?"

He scowled in a way that was supposed to intimidate me, but I didn't so much as flinch. Unlike my brothers, even Darry, I'd long since discovered the truth about Dallas Winston— he was all talk and no action. "If your daddy had ever told you girls oughta be seen and not heard, you'd be a hell of a lot prettier."

"Don't tell me you're into brunettes now," I said, my eyes narrowed. Like he had any right to judge how my daddy raised me, when his held a pitbull fighting ring in his yard and got arrested for public drunkenness every week.

"Let's just say I know what Sylvia really is," he said with a smirk, putting the arrogance back on, then abruptly shifted gears. "Listen, what I got with any broad ain't none of your fuckin' business, so shut your trap and go home. This ain't cute no more."

"And just what does that mean?"

"Means you're gonna get yourself into some trouble you have no idea how to handle, if you keep hangin' around places this rough."

I downed the rest of the cup in one gulp, just to piss him off. "You're _worried_ about me. Ain't that sweet."

"Like I said, only thing I'm worried about is your brothers on my ass," he retorted quickly. "I know you an' Sylvia are real tight, but you ain't the kind of girl that goes to flophouses with her tits out, way she is."

"I think I can take care of myself, thanks," I said, my smile razor-thin. "You'd better stay done with Sylvia. She don't deserve your bullshit."

"Last time I was in reform school, I came back home and found that slut sniffin' around Johnny. That seem like a good enough reason to dump her to you?"

"But you _didn't_ dump her, did you?" I grabbed a shot from the coffee table and downed it, the alcohol burning my throat, and viciously swallowed a giggle. Now I'd really had too much, though I would've cut my tongue out before I admitted it to Dallas. "Why the fuck won't you just end it, then, if she's such a slut?"

"'Cause that broad's like the first time I shot up." He laughed. "Gonna fuckin' kill me someday, but I just keep comin' back for more. You'll understand when you get a boyfriend."

I was fixing to slap him when Buck himself wandered over to us; I shifted uncomfortably, afraid he might ask questions, but he stared straight past me like I was part of the upholstery. "Hey, Dally," he drawled; I couldn't look away from his missing front teeth, which didn't do much for the few charms he'd ever had. "You got any more of that—" He mimed popping something into his mouth.

"Keep your voice down, 'less you want the whole party pawin' at me," Dallas hissed in his direction. "You'd better not be here when I get back," he told me, grabbing hold of my arm— the imprints of his fingers burned after he let go. "I'm serious."

Maybe I would've stuck around out of sheer spite, or given more thought to Dallas's new business, if some projectile vomit hadn't splattered an inch away from my shoes just then. At that point, I figured it was long since time to cut my losses.

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, it was with a raging headache on the left side and the taste of stale beer in my mouth— I'd collapsed onto my bed at three A.M. and slept fitfully, still wearing the clothes I'd had on last night. I knew without getting up that my mascara had smeared all over my face, and didn't much feel like getting up at all; I flipped onto my stomach and buried my head into my pillow, trying to keep any rays of sunlight from penetrating my skull.

Dallas was right, goddamn him; if Mom and Dad hadn't died, I wouldn't have started sneaking out to sleazy parties just to feel something that wasn't furious, or sad, or so hollow I had to pinch myself to make sure I still existed. I wouldn't have started lying to my brothers about it as easy as breathing. And I definitely wouldn't have started keeping a bottle of... 'medicinal' whiskey under my bed, for mornings when I thought about my parents' disapproval a little too long.

Groaning at the stars flashing across my field of vision, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and pulled said bottle out, unscrewing it fast and letting the liquid course down my throat, into my veins— mentally flipping Dallas off. Any guy selling prescription benzos to Buck would be a lot better pressed to focus on his own damn self.

"Jasmine, sit down for a minute, okay," Darry said once I finally wandered into the kitchen, meaning to make myself a plate of toast and retreat right back to my room before he saw me. There was a thick, worried crease across his forehead. "We need to talk."

Reluctantly, I took the place he'd pulled out for me at the kitchen table, wondering if he could sense the miasma of 'very, very hungover' coming off me in waves. I'd showered, changed, and scrubbed with a toothbrush until my gums bled, but that was one hell of a stern, parental tone. "I'm sorry 'bout yesterday," I said, staring down at my lap, half genuinely sorry and half hoping to defuse his temper.

"Well, social worker called again this morning," he said, not even throwing so much as an 'it's all right' in my direction. Figured. "She ain't thrilled, let's just say that."

"What, 'cause I was a couple minutes late?" I huffed, crossing my arms and trying to swallow some bile back down— not from last night, either. I knew what this was about; I knew every word of this conversation before it even happened. I never should've interpreted anything with that barricuda of a woman as a friendly talk.

"Can you quit bein' a shit for five seconds and listen to me?" I met his gaze as he stared me down; he looked away first, studying the pattern on the tablecloth. "She ain't got a problem with the boys— even though Soda's dropped out and everything, we can at least manage the bills now. And Pony's skipped a grade—"

"This story had a point, right? Somewhere?"

The glare he gave me then could've nailed me to the floor, and I tried to look ashamed. Mom had always said I had a mean mouth, and that it'd get me into a lot of trouble someday, but I couldn't bring myself to apologize again— not when my heart was pounding and I felt like wax was melting all over my scalp.

"Yeah, there's a _point_ ," he said slowly. "She's real worried 'bout you. Says that she's not sure how you're supposed to grow up into a woman with no... 'feminine influence'."

I let out a nervous snort, unsure of how else to react. "Ain't like we're livin' in a bunker, right? I go outside. There's women everywhere."

"Not a woman in the house, and that's what matters to her. Not someone who can... you know... show you how to be a wife and mother." He looked more uncomfortable than he had when I'd explained what 'girl things' I needed money for every month, and that was saying something. "She thinks it's a little rough around here for you. With all the boys in and out."

"And what, she thinks it'd be better for me to grow up in a girls' home? 'Cause we don't have any other family, unless you count crazy Uncle Gene."

"Don't talk about Uncle Gene like that," he half-heartedly scolded. "Ain't his fault the war messed him up."

"You sure weren't so nice about him when he came to visit and got Soda hooked on three different kinds of kush."

"He ain't our only relative, okay?" Darry said, right before I mentioned the weird mushrooms he'd also brought with him. "Listen, how much do you remember about Dad's family?"

"Not a lot." Deadbeat, drunk white father, and Nana Liluye, who'd lived on the rez in New Mexico without running water and died when I was three. Not exactly regular fixtures around the house at Christmastime. "Don't tell me—"

"Turns out he has a sister," Darry grimly concluded, and I would've burst out laughing if the situation hadn't been so damn serious. "His old man hooked up with another woman after he left Dad, and they had our Aunt Rose. She's been livin' in Lubbock, and Miss Edwards managed to track her down."

"Our... aunt?" I echoed, my jaw falling slack. "We have some mystery aunt down in Lubbock? How come Daddy never mentioned her, then?"

"'Cause I don't think he ever met her," Darry said, running a hand through his already-messy hair. "I only just found this out myself, okay? I dunno much at all. Just where she lives, and that she's heard about Dad, and that she wants to come up and see you."

"Wants to come up and see me, or wants to come up and _adopt_ me?"

"I'm still your legal guardian," Darry insisted. "She can't do anything yet except have some visits— she ain't even a lot older than me. Social worker was nice enough to at least make that much clear." He sighed, looking younger than he had to me in a long time. "I didn't want to worry you. Shit. But you need to be on your best behavior, all right? No gettin' into any trouble, good grades, that kind of thing. The three of you are on thin ice, but you especially right now."

"Okay," I said in a tiny voice, suppressing a guilty twitch. Best behavior, indeed. Well, at least it hadn't my worst.

"Don't worry about it, baby," he said gently, putting his hand on my shoulder for a moment. "I'll take care of it. Nobody's going anywhere. Social worker'll probably be satisfied with her comin' around every now and then, or she'll take one look at you and realize she doesn't need that kind of trouble in her life."

I choked out a laugh, but it was pretty forced, and the sliver of a smile on his face wasn't too genuine, either. "Go back to bed," he ordered, brushing his palm over my brow as I tried to twist away. "You feel a little hot."

"Yeah, okay," I said, suddenly drained of the energy it'd take to argue with him, and stopped long enough in the kitchen to grab that plate of toast. For once, Darry didn't bother to give me hell for bringing food into my room, and that scared me more than anything he'd just said.

* * *

Whenever my brothers had feelings they didn't know how to express, they went down to the garage and beat the hell out of Dad's old punching bag. Mom hadn't thought that was appropriate for a little girl, and Dad never bothered to teach me, so that left me with the next best thing; a sheet of paper to scribble all over.

Ponyboy liked drawing portraits, but I was an abstractionist, with the odd landscape; I didn't have enough patience to make decent faces, or a decent much of anything. I crashed down at my desk and pulled out my sketchbook, then started aimlessly doodling with a black colored pencil, my thoughts running too fast for me to develop one at a time. Who the fuck was this aunt, and why hadn't she bothered to show after Mom and Dad died and we were broke and had no idea what to do? What if she made Darry's brand of strict look like a kindergarten teacher's? Suppose the social worker got her way, and I had to move down to Lubbock, and only see everyone I knew on Christmas and summer break?

The pencil snapped in my grip and I threw the pieces across the room ( _my_ room, with walls Dad had painted purple, Mom's old quilt on my bed), furiously blinking back tears. I wanted Sylvia. More than that, I wanted a blunt. But I was probably still supposed to be grounded, and after what I'd pulled last night, I didn't want to test my luck that much. Instead, I planted my face onto the cool surface of my desk and left it there.

"I _knew_ you stole these!"

My head popped up as Pony grabbed the colored pencil box and waved it around like it was war booty; I hadn't even noticed him stroll in here. "Who else would've?"

"Hey to you too, and don't think I forgot what happened to my oil pastel set." Then my eyes caught the massive bandage wrapped around his middle finger. "What'd you do to yourself, huh? Looks a little worse than a paper cut."

"Mind your business," he quickly said, his cheeks turning a faint shade of pink as he shoved the hand into his jeans pocket.

I reached out and gave his earlobe a vicious tug, only letting up when he squawked— a privilege exclusively reserved for big sisters. It was good to at least be able to lord over one person in this house. "Either you tell me, or you tell Darry. Won't he like to know all about this?"

"Screw you," he muttered, but not with much heat. "Fine. Curly an' I was playin' chicken with a couple of weeds, and I was _about_ to win—"

"You two tried to burn each other's fingers off?" I slapped my hand against my forehead, hard. "Ain't you supposed to be so smart you're skippin' a grade, Einstein?"

"I was _about_ to win," he started again with a glare, "but then Tim showed up and cracked our heads together and said he'd kill us if he caught us again. Happy?"

"Not too thrilled by you burnin' holes into yourself with a Shepard," I shot back. "At least you had enough sense to put a bandage on that, though I dunno what the hell you're gonna tell Darry when he sees it."

"Sorry, _Mom_." He flopped down onto my bed and stretched his arms out like a starfish; he was almost taller than me, as little as I wanted to admit it. "Can't one day go by without you an' Darry naggin'?"

"You might just get your wish," I muttered, pressing down so hard with the purple pencil that the tip broke.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Social worker wants me out." This wasn't shaping up to be much of a drawing; in all honesty, I just felt like ripping the entire thing to shreds. I settled for scraping a vicious line across the paper. "To go live with our aunt."

He gave me a look like all of my brains had fallen out onto the floor. "We don't have an aunt."

"Dad's old man had another kid," I said shortly, not in the mood to retell the entire story. "An aunt that can help me grow up to be a real proper young lady, or whatever shit Miss Edwards is always goin' on about. She's comin' up to visit soon."

"That bitch," he said, and I wasn't sure if he was referring to our aunt or the social worker. "Dammit, that's crazy, Jas. They can't just make you leave 'cause they feel like it."

"Can too, if I'm a girl." Girls always got the toughest breaks— that was a law of the universe or something. "She thinks I'm livin' in a real den of debauchery here. Boys wanderin' around with their shirts off, drinkin' milk straight outta the carton, you know. Y'all are real bad influences."

Him throwing his arms around me was unexpected— Pony had been all about acting tuff since he turned the ripe old age of fourteen— but not unwelcome. Not in that moment, when I felt ready to fly apart. "You can keep the colored pencils," he offered magnanimously, letting go after a few seconds. "And nag. If you want."

I let out a weak, watery snort. "God, you're a dumbass. What are you even gonna tell Darry happened to you? Trust me, he'll notice. He notices everything."

He grimaced. "At least Darry ain't Tim. Christ hell. He dragged Curly all the way down the street by the collar."

Well, seemed like Tim wasn't about to take much shit from his kid brother— still didn't explain the trash fire that was Angela Shepard. "Don't worry," Pony said, snapping me back into the present. "There's no way Darry's gonna just let them move you out. I mean, _me_ , maybe..."

That made perfect sense, in his mind. To Pony, Darry was a god; a harsh god all right, a real prick most of the time, but still omnipotent. Of course he could stop the social worker and our cipher of an aunt from getting what they wanted— what'd he have to fear from the state when even Dally listened to him?

I knew better.


	3. Dizzy Up the Girl

"Ponyboy, what the _hell_ were you thinking?" Darry slammed his fork down with a dramatic clatter, smearing syrup from his plate onto our nice, clean tablecloth. This wasn't the first time he'd said that (dinner had been most unpleasant). It wasn't the second. We were even past the third. "If that burn gets infected, you know how high the doctor's bill is gonna be? Higher than we can afford, that's for sure."

"Why bother even takin' me?" Ponyboy muttered, turning his hotcakes into a pile of mush. "Just lemme die from gangrene, if it'll save you a buck."

"Awh, Darry, lay offa him." Two-Bit waved his knife around for emphasis. "We used to play chicken all the time, remember? When'd you become such a stick in the mud?"

"Since Tim Shepard showed up at my door and told me I'd better school my little brother a lesson, that's when."

"Nah, Darry's right— kid's a real dumbass sometimes." Steve reached across the table to flick Ponyboy on the forehead. "Hey, dumbass, you're the only person I know who'd lose a competition in stupid to _Curly Shepard_."

"Who asked you?" Ponyboy tried to smack him back, but Steve twisted out of the way before he could. "Soda, help!"

"C'mon, guys, leave him alone," Soda pacified. "But—" he rubbed his knuckles on the top of his head— "you were kind of a dumbass, buddy."

"Hey!"

I decided two things right then. One, that Johnny was my favorite of my brothers' friends, mostly because he never talked (and ate the damn breakfast I'd cooked, which everyone else seemed happy to ignore.) Two, that now was an opportunity to slip out the door and bounce like a pogo stick without being noticed.

* * *

"Well, could beat livin' at home with the Three Stooges."

"Thanks for your overwhelming sympathy," I grumbled, jamming a half-melted grape popsicle into my mouth and wiping my sticky hands on the kitchen table.

"Look, ain't you always bitchin' about those brothers of yours? This aunt might be not be so bad." Sylvia reached over and patted me on the shoulder. "Darry said she's young, right? She could lend you makeup and shit."

"She lives in _Lubbock_." I bit a fingernail off and immediately regretted it, running my tongue over the quick. "Remember that teensy little detail?" God, Lubbock was where Dad had met Mom after he got out of the army, one of the few fragments about their pasts I knew— I couldn't believe he'd had a sister there the entire time and just never managed to meet her, even though the city wasn't that much smaller than Tulsa. Big enough to swallow her up, I supposed.

"Oh. Right. Fuck." Some red syrup dribbled down her chin as she processed that, and it took a few seconds for her to drag the back of her hand across her face. "She can't just show up an' grab you, can she?"

"I dunno." Miss Edwards sounded nothing but thrilled at the prospect of her swooping in, picking up her charity case, and taking me off my broke-as-a-joke brother's hands, that was for sure. "Darry says she might not even want more than a visit, but that's my social worker's wet dream." I sighed, long and loud. "This is flat-fuckin' crazy. Like something out of a soap opera, Jesus Christ. Dad's got a half-sister that he never even knew about."

"You really think it's that crazy to have a half-sister? Come on— my mama's got her third baby daddy right now. Is it that hard to believe that after your granddad split, he could've had another kid?"

My jaw clenched. I knew his name had been Al Curtis, and that he was dead, because the social worker showed us the certificate. I also knew that Dad, whose booming voice had never seemed to stop echoing throughout the house, had shrunk into himself at even the mention of him, looked off into the distance, and told us to play outside for a while; once, I'd hidden behind the rusty fridge in the yard and watched him beat the punching bag so bad it burst. That was why he'd joined a gang when he was younger, I'd heard him holler at my brothers after they'd gotten caught drag-racing or fighting at school, because he'd never had a father around to smack some sense into him.

I didn't find anything about that bastard hard to believe. I was just sorry my aunt had grown up with him, though for all I knew, maybe he'd split on her too.

Sylvia opened her mouth to say something else, hopefully something comforting, when her stepdaddy _du jour_ wandered into the kitchen— rumpled hair, stained Sooners t-shirt, murder in his beady eyes. "What the fuck's this racket? If y'all don't quit it when I'm tryna sleep—" He stumbled forward and caught hold of the counter. "I'mma.. take you outshide an' tan your tides. _Good_."

"Yessir," Sylvia said, putting on her most angelic smile. "I'm so sorry we woke you up. We won't ever do it again, I promise."

"You'd better not." As quickly as he'd walked in, he walked out, and Sylvia flipped off the empty space where he'd stood.

"Livin' with Ray means never havin' to buy your own booze," she snorted. "Ain't afraid of his lazy ass, but if he tells my mama I been givin' him lip, I'm really in for it."

"Thanks for makin' me feel better about my family," I said, dead serious. At least Darry didn't drink, and was gainfully employed— that already put him a rung above most of the daddies in this neighborhood.

"That's what friends are for," she said with the same exaggerated smile, when the doorbell rang. "Dammit, what _now_?"

"I'll get it," her brother begrudgingly called out from the living room couch, meandering to the door. I liked him. All the pole he smoked every day had pretty much reduced him to the cognitive level of a slug, with about as much speed, but unlike my brothers, he never tried to tell anyone what to do. "Oh, hey, Dallas. Hey, Curly."

"That idiot," Sylvia hissed, rising from her chair, but it was too late— they'd already filed in, Dallas looking smug, Curly sheepish. "Nate, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Ignoring the other two for the moment, she smacked him on the shoulder, hard, even though she was at least six inches shorter than him. "I _said_ not to let him in! Ever again!"

"Hey," Nate said with a careless shrug, not even trying to dodge her blows, "Dallas runs with my gang, and Curly's in it. I can't just leave them out there on the porch."

"What's more important to you, your gang or your little sister?"

While Nate thought that one over, Dallas sidled up to her, not bothering to hide his smirk. "Hi, baby. You know what you could suck on instead of that popsicle?"

"Stick your dick in my mouth and I'll bite it off," she said sweetly. "Get outta here, hood."

He laughed without any humor, the way he usually did. "You're a crazy bitch, Syl," he said, a hint of admiration in his voice. "That's why I like you so much."

Sylvia blushed, and to my rising horror, her lips were twitching upwards. I had to intervene before this got any worse. "You deaf or somethin'? I told you to leave her the fuck alone last night."

"Last night?" Sylvia asked, her gaze flickering between me and him.

"Jasmine here came to Buck's and told me to leave you alone. Too bad I never do what anyone tells me."

"Angela dropped you, huh?" Sylvia said, putting the mask of fake sympathy she'd worn in front of her stepfather on again. "And now you've come runnin' back?"

"Hey, look, baby, I even brought a character witness." He gestured towards Curly, who I strongly suspected had been bribed to come along. "Curly, I've got nothing goin' on with your kid sister no more, right?"

"Tim beat his nose in so bad, he's probably never gonna smell again," Curly dutifully recited. "And he says if Angel tries to go after another guy his age, her ass is gonna be a crater once he's done with her."

"I'd still bite your dick off," Sylvia said flatly, but I could feel her resolve cracking inch by inch— she considered this the height of romance. It was like watching a fault line appear in the earth. "Maybe then you'd have to think with your other head."

"You'd miss it, though." He leered at her, letting her know exactly what she was going to be missing. "I just wanna hear it from you, Syl. You leavin' me for good?"

"You're a bastard."

"I know."

"And a two-timer."

"I know."

"And a no-good hood."

"I know." He smiled, showing his sharp teeth, and then kissed her, hooking an arm around her waist to pull her closer to him. I waited for her to pull away, slap him, knee him in the nuts when he least expected it—

Oh, no— she wrapped her arms around his neck and just as enthusiastically sucked his face, letting him push her against the table and start reaching up her skirt. Dallas's eyes snapped open and met mine; the smug look on his face was indescribable, even without his lips involved. _Too bad I never do what anyone tells me._

Three days. A new goddamn record.

Curly gave me the most intense side-eye I'd ever received. "They always like this?"

"Yes," I said with a grimace.

"Are they just gonna... on the _table_?"

"Yes."

"You wanna split?"

I didn't really know Curly's ass from a hole in the ground, but at that point, I would've left the room with the Grim Reaper. "Sure."

* * *

"I got some smokes," Curly said, fishing a pack of Marlboros and a lighter out of his pocket. "Want one?"

"You bet." I took a cigarette from his proffered pack and lit up, cradling it between two fingers after a long drag.

We weren't supposed to be on the playground without a child under twelve in hand— at least not according to the sign— but I didn't know any parents stupid enough to let their kids on the rusted-over jungle gym, or the soccer field littered with hypodermic needles and broken beer bottles. There sure was a nice view of that field from the top of the monkey bars, which we'd clambered onto; I squinted in the bright sunlight, blowing out smoke. "Tim's always takin' weeds offa Angel, since she was ten or somethin'," he said. "I meant it, he's been on her ass like crazy since he caught her with Dally. Tell Sylvia."

"I don't think I have to," I said, and we both shared a traumatized look. "Wish he'd be on _your_ ass more. Darry's still hollerin' at Pony for that dumb shit you pulled yesterday."

"Hey, dammit, I got a goose egg on my skull where Tim knocked our heads together." He brushed some of his loose black curls aside to reveal an swollen, blueish lump. "Look at this thing. Ain't I suffered enough?"

I let out a low whistle to protect his feelings. "Angela must really be a wild one, if Tim's more worried 'bout her than you."

"Oh, shit, whatever you've heard, she's worse." He flashed me a crooked grin. "Our ma tried to send her to Catholic school at the end of last year, St. Catherine's, and the nuns booted her out after a week— she slammed some little bitch into a desk and broke her collarbone. Tim says it's too damn bad she was born a girl, 'cause we could use her in the gang." The cigarette in his hand had burned all the way to a stub; he dropped it onto the ground beneath us, not bothering to put it out, and lit up a new one. "It's a goddamn miracle she hasn't landed herself in juvie yet, but she's real good at talkin' her way outta trouble, most of the time."

"Lemme guess— this whole love affair with Dally was her idea?"

"Sister, you're a sharp one." He wobbled on the thin metal bars and almost lost his balance. "Can't believe you just showed up at Buck's to tell _Dallas Winston_ where to get off. You're damn lucky you're a broad— he once punched a guy at the candy counter for askin' him to move over. Jesus fuckin' Christ."

"Was worth a shot." Not really, seeing as I'd only succeeded at making him dig his heels in deeper, but I couldn't have lived with myself if I'd let that five car pileup happen again and not even tried to intervene. "Didn't want him all over my best friend any more than you want him all over your sister."

"Probably shouldn't tell you this, but—" He burned his finger on the second weed and hissed, sticking yet another injured appendage in his mouth to suck out the pain.

"Try me."

"Dally ain't the first older guy she's gone after— honestly, he's the best," he admitted (telling me exactly nothing new, though I wasn't enough of an ass to say that out loud). "Don't wanna call my own kid sister a slut or nothin', but Tim's made me swear up an' down that I'll be watchin' her close at school."

"You're still in school?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood a little. "Tuff hood like you?"

"Damn well wish I wasn't," he groaned, leaning so far back that I thought he was going to fall off and catching himself at the last second, his t-shirt riding up. "Turns out you can't even get away from it in the goddamn _reformatory_ 'til you're sixteen. 'Sides, Tim's a lousy hypocrite. He dropped out on his birthday to deal, but no, now he wants me an' Angel to graduate."

"You think that's hard, try havin' a brother who got voted Boy of the Year," I said, unable to muster up much sympathy. "Every day after school, he makes me and Pony sit down at the kitchen table and do our homework before we can do anything fun at all. Then he _checks it over_."

Curly snorted. "I got an idea, if Darry'll let you out of the house long enough. My buddies and I are gonna have a bonfire in the lot next weekend— you and Pony should come." The corner of his mouth turned up. "Dally's probably gonna be there."

"That's supposed to convince me to come? Think I'll stay home and wash my hair instead."

"You know," he said with a calculating expression on his face, "he could've pounded you into next week for orderin' him around, broad or not, but he didn't. Guess he got a kick out of it."

"Darry and Soda would've strangled him," I said, feeling a splotchy blush rising. "He ain't enough of a dipshit to mess with me."

"He was sure tryin' to mess with you today. Practically flipped you the bird when he felt up Sylvia's tits, and those things are pretty damn distracting."

"I gotta go," I muttered, jumping off the monkey bars so fast I scraped my hands on the woodchips. "Thanks for the weed an' all, but I need to... wash my hair again."

His ringing laugh followed me all the way out of the park.

* * *

Soda was waiting for me on the porch when I got home, pretending to read a newspaper headline about the Voting Rights Act. "Hold it right there, young lady," he chided, trying hard not to smirk at me. "Ain't you supposed to be grounded?"

"Darry real mad?" I shot a nervous look at the front door.

"Wasn't pleased you split, but lucky for you, he's still too busy rippin' Pony a new one."

I didn't have to listen hard to hear the dulcet tones of my brothers squabbling. "What would Miss Edwards think of this, huh? You ever consider that? I know the state'll just love that oozing cigarette burn. Really makes me seem like a great parent who supervises his kids— if I'm lucky, she won't assume I did it myself."

"So what?" Ponyboy demanded; I tilted my head towards the window to hear better. "So what? Jasmine's already outta here the second Aunt Rose shows up, and we know it. I'll probably end up bunking with crazy Uncle Gene, or maybe Mom's got some secret relatives too."

I strained to listen to more of it, but they'd moved away, and all I could hear were indecipherable murmurs; I collapsed next to Soda on the porch swing, defeated. "Well, he ain't wrong," I said, aiming for humor and hitting something strangled. "I'll pick out nice postcards to send y'all from Lubbock."

Soda wrapped an arm around me and pulled me against him; I swallowed an iron lump in my throat and inhaled the smell of gasoline that always clung to his shirts. "Darry finally got a phone call from Aunt Rose today— state passed our number along," he said. "She's movin' up here to Tulsa. Says she don't want to disrupt things for you any more than they gotta be."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" I dug my nails into my palms, but the sting didn't distract me at all. "That means she ain't plannin' on showin' up once or twice and callin' it a day. She wants custody."

"Don't mean she'll get it," he said, and that didn't reassure me any more than Darry or Ponyboy's promises had. "So Darry ain't a broad— big fuckin' deal. There's food on the table and the lights are on, and you ain't never met this woman in your life. What kinda judge is gonna take her side?"

"But what if he does?"

"At least you'll be close by." He gave me a tighter squeeze. "You can come home an' visit whenever you want. And it's only three years 'til you're eighteen."

 _It won't be my home anymore, if I have to 'visit'_. "I know you snuck out Friday night," he said before I could get a word in edgewise.

"Who told you?"

"You just did." I groaned— I was really off my game if I'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book. "And trust me, Jas, I know what hungover looks like when I see it."

"Thought you got drunk offa life, or whatever bullshit you fed Pony," I couldn't help but retort.

"Yeah, well, the kid practically sees me as Jesus, okay? Gotta maintain my image." He gave me his best approximation of a stern look. "You'd better be careful. I'm serious. Don't get into trouble that'll make the state think Darry goes too easy on us."

"You gonna tell him?" I muttered.

"Nah," he said, after seeming to mull it over for a few seconds. "I ain't no snitch, and Superman's got enough on his plate." The second stern look was a touch sterner than the first. "But on one condition. Hand 'em over."

"Hand what over?"

"The pack of smokes you got," he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Fine," I huffed, and reluctantly pulled it out of my skirt pocket and placed it in his waiting hand. "Happy?"

"Thrilled." He slung his arm around my shoulders again. "I did you a favor— Darry's gonna have a coronary, if he catches a nice girl like you with cancer sticks. C'mon, there's fried chicken for dinner."

Nice girl. The phrase rang in my ears, and I didn't want to think about how the same thing must have drawn Dallas to both me and my mother— we looked like nice girls, until we opened our mouths.


	4. School Daze

Sorry I've been gone for so long— I'm really behind on replying to people/reviewing since I started college a few weeks ago. I hope the chapter was worth the wait!

* * *

"Is your shirt tucked in?" I asked Pony, my eyes wide with horror.

"... Yeah?"

I immediately yanked it out of his pants and ruffled his too-greasy hair, despite his squawking. "It took Darry twenty minutes to do that!"

"Darry is trying to get you shoved inside a gym bag," I sagely informed him. "You're already runtier than all the other guys without dressin' like a nerd, too."

"You kids got your lunches?" Soda asked over the din, while Pony tried to murder me with his eyeballs. "Books? Hand grenades?" He kicked his feet up on the dashboard of the truck. "Damn, I don't envy you two. Day I said goodbye to Will Rogers was the best day of my life."

"Quit rubbin' it in before you're late for work." I grabbed my lunch bag out of the backseat and slammed the truck door shut as Soda pulled away from the curb. "We won't be here forever, either."

I had no idea what brilliant city planner decided to put a high school on the border between the hood and the west side, but they deserved to be taken out back and shot for it, because they'd created a war zone. "Don't talk to Socs," I said, elbowing Pony in the ribs and pointing at some polo-shirted assholes gathered around a Mustang. "I'm serious. If you see a Soc, cross to the other side of the hall."

"I'm not a pussy, Jas," he said with the beginnings of a pout. "Got my blade an' everything, an' I'm good in a rumble."

"Yeah, yeah, you're a real tough guy, but if you pull that blade here, the Soc'll get a slap on the wrist and you'll get led out in handcuffs." I stopped to think for a second. "Actually, scratch that. When Darry hears about you fightin' at school, you're gonna wish the police had gotten a hold of you first."

"Fiiiine." He stared at the crowd like a lamb marked for slaughter. "I'm screwed. Got it."

"If he tries to go after you first, fight like hell," I made sure to point out. "Just... stick to our kind, okay? Remember what happened to Johnny."

Not the best image to evoke right before his first day of school— Johnny on the ground, curled up in the fetal position, his blood soaking the grass— but I hoped it was solidly imprinted on the backs of his eyelids. Almost losing Johnny was hard enough, without even contemplating losing one of my brothers. "Anything I _can_ do?" Ponyboy asked once his face looked a little less green.

"Study hard so Darry won't ground you forever. Run track. Be careful."

"You hypocrite," Sylvia said, silently coming out from behind me. The column of her neck was covered in hickeys she hadn't bothered to hide, and the second a teacher clocked the length of the skirt on her, she was going to spend the first day of school in detention. "Pony, she always pretend she's so square around you?"

"Most of the time," he said, while I slowly dragged my finger across my throat. "Anything Darry would wanna know about, big sis?"

"Not one damn thing," I insisted. "Look, there's Two-Bit doin' his third tour of junior year. Go say hi."

More interested in the black-handled switch Two-Bit was flipping around near the dumpsters than potential blackmail, he scampered off, leaving the two of us alone. "I'm still mad at you," I said, turning to her with a huff. "Without you tellin' Pony on me."

"Don't be a bitch," she chided, running a hand through her neatly-coiffed hair. "You on the rag or somethin'? I told you, Dally an' I worked it all out."

"For what, the next five minutes?"

Sylvia never got offended; always pleaded no contest to anything said about her, even when it came from me. Instead, she just smirked. "Listen, Jas, you're my best friend and all, but he's taken."

"What the hell have you been smoking?" I sputtered. First Curly, now her? "God, my parents practically adopted him to keep him off the streets. I've seen his dirty socks hangin' off every square surface of my house, and I'm supposed to wanna hook up with _him_?"

"You're right," she said thoughtfully. "Seems like you an' Curly were gettin' real cozy after you left. Anything I should know about?"

"Curly's my annoying kid brother's annoying friend. All we did was smoke a few weeds." I shook my head, then shook it again, for good measure. "You must really think I have shit taste. Next you're gonna throw Nate into my dating pool."

"Nah, the only broad ever touchin' Nate's lips is Mary Jane. But Curly... I've heard _glowing_ references. He's been to the pen twice already." She winked at me, and there was something dirty in that wink. "For two different girls."

"That's just great. Can't think of anything better than visitin' my fifteen-year-old boyfriend in prison and knowin' he's there because of me." (What made him so similar to Dallas and Steve and Two-Bit and all the other guys I'd grown up with; broken and hard and reckless, throwing their lives away because they had nothing else to gamble on? What made Curly's biggest declaration of love a prison sentence?)

"The real world ain't always what your mama and daddy wanted it to be, okay?" She jostled her purse higher on her shoulder as the bell rang. "You ain't foolin' me. I know you think it's romantic. So loosen up."

Before I could contradict a word of that, she'd already walked away from me.

* * *

Most greasers at our school were quarantined in B-level classes, which permanently reeked of cigarette smoke, emitted the odd scream, and had teachers who freely admitted to just being there for the paycheck. On unfortunate account of my (and now Pony's) A-level brains, we hadn't ended up in these peaceful oases, but with the Socs.

"Heyyy, Jasmine," Brenda White said, smacking her gum and prodding me between the shoulderblades with a pencil. "Cherry wants to ask you something."

I'd known Brenda and her entourage ever since kindergarten; she'd called Soda a retard while we were playing in the sandbox, and I'd clocked her so hard with my Walking Wanda doll that her mouth had spewed blood; even after I'd gotten sent home from school for the day and Mom had whacked my butt good, I hadn't regretted it. Nine years later, in first period geometry, I still remained unrepentant. "Um, you know what, I don't, Brenda," Cherry Valance said from the desk beside her, uncomfortably twirling a strand of bright red hair around her finger. "It's really not that important."

"No, go ahead." I slammed my textbook shut and spun around to face them both. One was the jellyfish, the other the stinger. "What?"

"She wants to know if you need some help picking out your clothes," Brenda said, her voice flowing from her lips like poisoned honey. "Did you get that skirt from Goodwill? I mean, it must be hard when your family doesn't have a lot of money, but _still_."

I couldn't help my blush as I stared back down at it, because the truth was, it had come from my mother's closet... back in the forties. It went to my calves, the colors were faded, and there were stray threads coming out of the hem, but we hadn't had enough money left over to buy more school clothes I hadn't outgrown. "Must be hard to find decent clothes when your ass is that big, Brenda, but we've all got our crosses to bear, right?"

Her turn to scowl; she wasn't fat, honestly, but anyone in a ten-mile radius since last fall could hear her complain about how her amphetamine diet pills didn't work anymore. "You don't have to be so mean," Brenda finally said, putting the sweet act on again. "I'm just trying to _help_. Without a mom—"

"Brenda, come on, stop it," Cherry said, but without any real conviction in her voice. Bile rose up my throat, hot and acidic, and I was afraid I might be sick all over Danny Harris ahead of me if she finished her sentence. Why did it bother me so much? I'd heard it so many times before, had months to get used to the empty space in my life, and her casual cruelty still stuck right where it hurt.

"I guess it's not your fault you don't know how to act like a girl," Brenda triumphantly concluded. "Not when you don't have a mom around anymore."

The girl Dallas and Curly thought I was would've decked her without a moment's hesitation. The girl _I_ thought I was would've decked her without a moment's hesitation. But I wasn't six years old anymore, and my mother's scolding echoed in my head, delivered unequivocally as she'd swatted the back of my thighs. _Ladies don't fight, Jasmine. Ladies use their words._ Not to mention the speech I'd given Pony that morning. "You can say whatever you want about my mom, but at least my dad didn't leave her for a younger model," I hissed, my throat closing shut. "He even call for Christmas?"

Brenda's face turned an ugly, splotchy cross between red and white. "You'd better watch it, trailer trash. He probably wasn't even your real dad."

"Good morning, class," the teacher droned as he strolled into the room, dropping a stack of papers onto his desk— narrowly saving Brenda from a fist to the face, consequences be damned. "If you would open up your textbooks to page seven and begin to read the introduction—"

Math had always been my best subject, but my vision swam as I tried to pore over the words and figures, something about Pythagoras and Euclid. Just another reminder that not having a mom made me some kind of deformed freak— one in desperate need of an intervention. Another reminder that my aunt was coming in three days, because I couldn't be trusted to act like a lady, not when it counted.

* * *

When the principal called me down to the office at the end of the day, I hoped it was to kill me, or at least expel me. Sylvia had bailed by lunch to go for a joyride in Dally's car— she'd invited me along, but I would never willingly get inside any vehicle he was driving— and conversation between me and her other friends was always stilted without her around as a buffer. Not that I was in much of a mood to socialize. I'd finally given up on trying to make nice and left halfway through to sit in a bathroom stall, legs folded up, and calculate how many days I had left before graduation.

"You're not in any trouble, dear," the secretary said as I came inside, taking her phone away from her ear for a moment. "Just sit down; it's about your peer tutoring assignment. Why, no, Mrs. Sheldon, I'm afraid we can't transfer your son to another homeroom so he can be with his friends—"

Peer tutoring— Darry had volunteered me to keep me off the streets in the afternoon, despite my protests that I'd really prefer a job that paid an actual salary. _Won't distract you from your schoolwork_ , he'd said, holding up a hand to end all my whining, _and I don't need a little girl's help payin' the bills._ I'd wanted to say that I didn't see the point in school anymore, when I knew there wasn't a red cent to send Pony to college, much less me, but I hadn't felt suicidal enough to push it. With the secretary insisting that no, Mrs. Sheldon, her son just wasn't that special, even with the generous donations her husband had made to the school, I crept over to the closed office door and peered through the glass.

"Miss Shepard," the principal said, steepling his hands on his desk. Well, if that wasn't a surprise. " _Angela_. I've had both of your brothers at Will Rogers. I can't call either of them exemplary pupils."

Angela yawned, stretching her arms languidly above her head. She was a beauty, I had to admit, a real femme fatale, with long, blue-black ringlets falling down her back and a rouged, pouty mouth; she looked a lot older than fourteen, and I could see how she'd managed to attract so much attention. "Worried I'll break Tim's suspension record?"

His crusty lips narrowed into an invisible line. "I've received reports from your junior high principal, and the headmistress at St. Catherine's. Neither are what I'd call... glowing. Insubordination in the classroom, poor scholastic performance, _slamming another girl's head into a desk_ —"

"Trust me, she had it coming."

"That is conduct I absolutely refuse to tolerate in a student here— especially a female one," he continued as though she hadn't said anything. "You are skating on very thin ice, young lady. This is a school, not a reformatory for juvenile delinquents. Now, I understand that you have had some... difficulties at home."

She straightened up in her chair, some of her nonchalant amusement gone. "I don't think that's none of your business."

"I understand that with your father's passing, things have been difficult for your family, but that's no excuse for this kind of behavior. There will be serious consequences if it continues here, and you'll be lucky if they aren't legal."

"Serious consequences. Right." She picked up her satchel and slung it over her shoulder. "Can I go now?"

"Sit _down_ , Miss Shepard," he said, pointing a commanding finger at her chair. "I've decided that you could clearly benefit from our peer tutoring program— why, even from a role model, of sorts. Miss Curtis, if you could come inside..?"

I pushed the door open and smiled innocently, pretending that I hadn't been eavesdropping on their entire conversation. "Yessir?"

"I know that you were assigned to tutor Brenda White in geometry this semester, but I've found a better place for you," he said. "This young lady is Angela Shepard, a new freshman. I think she could use some guidance as she begins the year, in joining the school community, and I hope you're willing to assist her."

Translation: Welcome to your new career as a probation officer.

"I'd be happy to, sir," I said, fighting a grimace— this was better than Brenda, but having my wisdom teeth taken out would be better than Brenda. Angela's eyes skidded over me, and she quickly went back to examining her nails, her lip curling up.

"Wonderful." He sat back, observing a job well done. "Three days a week, in the library after school— and Miss Shepard, I'd _really_ suggest you attend."

Without another word, or waiting to be dismissed, she swept out of the room, her head held as high as a queen's; I followed to find her leaning against the lockers, staring off at the end of the hallway. "Let me get one thing straight," she said. "You can run along home now, okay? I don't need no fucking tutoring."

"Guess you do if you got expelled, huh?" Her clear, dark eyes unnerved me— I felt like I was sinking into a black hole every time I looked at them. "I don't give a shit if you don't wanna be tutored, but you'd better at least show. I'm not trackin' you down all over the city and haulin' your ass into a chair."

"You wouldn't be able to haul me far." She opened her skirt pocket enough to show metal, glinting under the fluorescent lights. A switchblade— so the rumors were true, then. I'd never seen a girl carry one before, not even Sylvia.

"Your brother know you have that thing?"

"Curly? He gave it to me." She pulled it out, twirling it between her fingers— nervously, I glanced around for any passing teachers, but the hallway was deserted. "And what Tim don't know can't hurt him."

"He wants you and Curly to finish school, doesn't he?" I said, realizing that I had a much more potent weapon. "Curly was goin' on about it yesterday. He wouldn't be too happy if he found out you're cuttin' your last shot at graduation."

She looked close to taking that knife and slashing Tim's scar into my cheek. "You try that, I'll tell Darry exactly what you been doin' at night— and by the time he hears it from me, you'll be blowin' every guy on the east side, and some on the west."

"I'll cut off my nose to spite my face," I said, my tone as flat as a sheet of paper. "You just try me."

"Jesus, what's your damage?" she demanded, putting a foot up on the locker— her shoes were a lot nicer than she should've been able to afford, coming from this side of the tracks. "You _that_ eager to teach me algebra?"

"Because Brenda White's an even bigger bitch than you" seemed like the wrong thing to say. I said it anyway.

"Shit, she really bad enough to make you wanna hang with me?"

"She's a Soc."

"Hey, St. Catherine's was full of spoiled rich cunts, too," Angela said, the word 'cunt' effortlessly rolling off her tongue, looking a hell of a lot more sympathetic. "I get it."

"Please tell me that means you'll show up."

She gave me the kind of smile wolves gave the rabbits in their jaws. "All right, all right. Just don't expect us to do a lot of studying."

* * *

Pony was sitting at the kitchen table when I got home, holding a bag of frozen peas up to a badly bruised jaw. "I can explain, okay," he said once he saw me, wincing in pain from the words. "He was askin' for it. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't punch him, shit."

"What'd he say?" I asked, deliberately calm, pouring myself a glass of orange juice. Pony had always tried to extract himself from fights before— not like Darry, who had too much muscle and stubbornness for his own good, or Soda, whose temper could be as wild as Dad's had been. He'd changed. We all had.

"That Mom and Dad were drunks. And that Dad was drivin' drunk that night."

I stared at him, unblinking. "Ain't you gonna yell or something?" he demanded, prodding the spreading damage. "You're the one who told me not to fight."

"You get caught?"

"No."

"Then make up some story for Darry, and keep it that way," I said, the mantra of this house lately. "I don't care."

I couldn't cry anymore, not even after seeing his hurt face— _sorry, little brother, I'm out of service right now_. Back in my room, I took the glass of juice and dumped the better part of a vodka bottle into it.

Bottoms up.


	5. Enigma

FINALLY FINISHED THIS. Sorry it took so long, guys— college + recurring bronchitis haven't been kind to me, but I'm back! Hope someone's still reading.

* * *

That goddamn little snake.

Don't trust a Shepard, Darry had always told us, since he tried to make friends with Tim again and he walked out with Mom's watch and my christening bangles. Really should've listened to him before I ended up sitting in the library, rhythmically kicking the table leg, waiting for Angela to show. Again.

Well, that settled it. I was just going to have to cram geometry down Brenda White's throat and fantasize about cramming a dead snake down there instead— what the fuck.

"You're not allowed in here." I hissed as Dallas, wearing a worn leather jacket and looking badly hungover, strolled up to me— I didn't even think he knew where the school library _was_. Thank God the librarian was stone blind and prone to afternoon naps, or else she probably would've called the fuzz. "What do you want?"

"You to help me find the Playboy section, obviously." It was almost impressive, how straight he kept his face after that one. "Nah, I need to talk to Ange, and Sylvia says she's with you."

"Then you're up the creek without a paddle, 'cause I ain't seen her neither." I leaned forward, close enough to smell his musky cologne. "Seriously, wasn't there a restraining order? I definitely remember a restraining order."

"Banned from bein' within five hundred feet of the place, even after I dropped out. Looks like administration don't have much of a sense of humor 'bout them chem lab windows." He grinned. "If I tell you a secret, you gonna let the fuzz in on it?"

"Depends," I said. "Murder, yeah. Arson, maybe I'll let it go."

"Wasn't even me who broke 'em— quit lookin' at me like that, I'm serious. It was Two-Bit."

"I know you can lie better than that," I scoffed. "C'mon, I've _met_ Two-Bit. Casual destruction of property is a lot more your style than his."

"Hey, Kathy told him to beat it, he chugged some hard lemonade, he decided to take out all that pent-up frustration on the shithole that held him back twice. It happens."

"And you selflessly swooped in to take the blame for him. 'Cause you're just that nice."

"I'm never nice." He whipped out a cigarette, remembered where he was, and shoved it back in his pocket. "Just didn't want ol' Keith to get a record with the fuzz— he wouldn't last a hot minute in the pen. They kicked me out after two weeks 'cause of overcrowdin', anyway."

"Or maybe you wanted another notch on _your_ record."

"Well, that too." He shrugged languidly. "Two-Bit, he ain't no hood, shit. Worst thing he does is steal whatever ain't nailed down, an' that's not much of a crime. He's gonna need to show me a more impressive resumé before I let him take credit for his own vandalism."

"Mom said you ain't growin' up to be no hood either," I said, the memory springing to my mind unbidden. "Christ hell, she yelled at you louder than Dad did that night, and I thought he was gonna make us all go deaf."

Dallas had always listened to Mom, if he felt like listening to anyone; though Dad had certainly put no small amount of effort into making his dumb ass sit down, shut up, and forget the insulting nicknames he'd invented for all of Tulsa's police officers (and a solid few in Jenks and Sapulpa), he never used the bored, hard look he'd had during those lectures on her. Stayed in school for her until the day she died, even, something Soda accomplished with a hell of a lot more pouting. When she said he wasn't growing up like his daddy, he'd nodded real nice and said yes, ma'am.

"You miss her?"

I couldn't believe the question had come out of him; not accusatory, but soft and wistful. "Yeah, 'course I do. You ain't the only one." My fingers found my necklace, all muscle memory, rubbing the pendant between them.

"You had quite a mom," he said. "She knew the score. I felt like fuckin' Jehovah himself came down to judge when she got pissed at me, though, goddamn. Would've rather taken an ass-whoopin' from a nightstick than listened to her go on."

"What happened to yours?" I blurted out, though asking Dallas about his childhood was a dangerous game. He flashed his cigarette-burned wrist like a knife, sometimes, daring you to make assumptions about how he'd grown up, but I'd never heard him mention any family besides his father.

"Ain't none of your business, but—" he mimed sliding a needle into the crook of his elbow. "Don't ask me no goopy questions about her, 'cause I don't remember shit. I was five or six or somethin'."

"I'm sorry," I said, huffing out a sigh long enough to rustle the papers on my desk. "It blows. Not havin' a mom."

"Soda already told me your sob story, so you can spare me the details," he said before we could share a moment. "Shit, I got a crazy aunt _and_ uncle," he then offered, clearly racking his brains for something comforting. "Whole family of Witnesses, them an' six goddamn kids. No birthdays, no Christmas, no nothin', an' you got the shit switched outta you if you put a pair of scissors down on the Bible. Can't be as bad as that fuckin' nightmare, so get over it."

I tried to suppress a shudder at the thought of Dallas unleashed on that clan. Didn't work. "Any more words of wisdom for me?"

"Yeah. Tell Ange I need to talk to her— and not about our fucking love life, so she can quit tryna dodge me," he said, curling his lip. "'Bout business. I ain't got the time to be waitin' on her."

"You gonna tell me what 'the business' is, or—"

"No," he said, reaching the limits on his pleasant interaction for the day. "If I gotta spell it out, you ain't half as smart as I thought you were."

"Hope you had better lines to get Angela into bed," I called at his retreating back, then regretted that the second half the library turned to stare at me. You never quite got a full compliment out of Dallas Winston, unless you were my mother.

* * *

"For the last time, you look _fine_. Get outta the bathroom already."

"I was late for my fifth grade flute recital 'cause you couldn't quit checkin' your chin for peach fuzz." I ran the brush through my hair again, scowling at the new tangle it got stuck in. "Wait your turn."

"Like you were the next Beethoven, here. Mom practically had to glue your lips to that damn flute before you'd practice." Another pound on the door, an even harder one. "You'd better not be doin' makeup."

"Definitely not." I screwed the cap back on my mascara and scrutinized my reflection, pinching my cheeks, frowning at the zit that had sprung up overnight on my forehead; I still felt painfully young, in my school skirt and old sweater set, but if Darry caught so much as a stroke of lipstick on me, he'd frog-march me right back inside to wash it off.

"You're stallin'," he said, and I finally swung the door open, wiping my sweaty palms on the towel. "C'mon, this ain't a fashion show."

"I just don't want her to think I'm a little kid," I muttered, embarrassed at my vanity. What the hell did I care what she thought about anything, much less me? She wasn't my mama, and she was never going to be, if I had a say in it… not that I did.

"You are a little kid," he said, like I thought he would, and fiddled with my blouse collar. "So don't worry 'bout Aunt Rose, okay? Just don't seem too eager to get to know her, and lemme handle the rest."

The doorbell rang, making me jump up from the sheer shock of hearing it; we might as well have had a curtain there instead, seeing as everyone just strolled inside and hollered to announce their presence. I jumped even more after Darry pulled it open, revealing—

White. An unmistakably white woman, with salon-styled auburn hair and fish-underbelly skin and bright blue eyes, standing there in the foyer— she looked nothing like Nana Liluye, or Dad, or even me and my brothers, but she sure did look like she belonged in _Father Knows Best_ , and then I knew exactly what kind of family Al Curtis had split to create. A string of pearls around her neck, too. Jesus.

"Jasmine, baby," she said, her red mouth forming an awkward slash. "Hi."

"Hi," I croaked out, wanting to avoid eye contact, but her gaze pinned me like a butterfly to a corkboard; her hands fluttered around my waist before she pulled me into a brief, one-armed hug. She smelled expensive, Chanel No. 5 or something fancy I'd copped a whiff off of the Soc girls.

"This is a lovely home," she told Darry as she disentangled herself from my grip, but her scrunched-up face belied her words— well, it was nothing we hadn't already heard from the social worker, about a lick of paint and nicer furniture and maybe Jasmine could stitch some pretty new curtains? "Your mother must've had good taste."

"She sure did, thank you," Darry said in that same faux-polite voice, his jaw clenched so tight I practically heard his teeth grinding together. "Why don't you come sit down an' have some tea, Aunt Rose?"

"Just Rose." She pulled out a chair and perched herself on it. "Don't think I'm quite old enough to call myself your aunt, Darrel."

 _So how come you're old enough to raise me?_ I wanted to ask, but instead I bit down on my tongue until I tasted copper. She reached over to run a thumb down my jaw, and I tried to keep my head as still as possible. "You're a pretty girl," she said with a little laugh. "You must breakin' hearts already. Know I was at your age."

"Jasmine's got her schoolwork to be worryin' about, before any boys," Darry cut in from the kettle, his head swiveling around so fast I thought it was going to snap off. Lord, you'd think she'd suggested I take up dancing on a pole. "She's awful smart at math. Wouldn't want anything to disrupt that."

"Are we already cuttin' to the chase?" She sighed, long and loud, like Sylvia when Dally was taking too long getting her a soda. "Don't try to beat a woman at passive-aggressive, hon. I've had a lot more practice."

Darry put her teacup down in front of her so hard a few drops sloshed. "You're right, I'm better at bein' blunt. _Rose_ , we appreciate you offerin' to look after Jasmine, really, but we're doin' just fine. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough before."

"That's not what your social worker told me. Actually, she's got a pretty long list of complaints." She leaned forward, like she'd figured out the secrets of the universe from Miss Edwards's thick case file. "Says you're workin' two jobs to pay the bills, for starters, and that's with your brother droppin' out of school to help."

"Is this the part in the story where we find out we not only got a secret aunt, but she's also a millionaire?" He rubbed his temples. "'Cause I'll admit it, we could use some more cash 'round here, but not if it means breakin' up the family."

"Not a millionaire, by any means, but I'm certainly comfortable." She took a dainty sip out of her cup. "I don't mean any offense, but your social worker's under the belief that this isn't an appropriate environment for Jasmine. A girl her age is... impressionable."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Darry asked, his face beginning to heat up. "This house ain't no dope shack. Maybe we don't have the most money, but I make sure there's food on the table and clothes on their backs. We get by."

"She says you've got juvenile delinquents runnin' around," she said bluntly. "Wouldn't stop talking for twenty minutes 'bout this punk Dallas Winston who's got his own file down at the station, and she says the rest of your brother's friends aren't much better." She lowered her voice for dramatic effect. "Is it… drugs? Is that the problem?"

All right, letting Darry handle this was going to lead him breaking Dad's 'don't hit girls— that goes twice for your sister' rule. "There's nothin' wrong with Dally," I said, then almost swallowed my tongue from shock at how offended I was. Only we got to call him a delinquent, goddammit. "He's practically our brother— so's the rest of them. And they don't bring drugs in the _house_."

Judging by Darry's death glare (something I'd been finding myself on the receiving end of way too much lately), I should've done a better job of denying any drugs, period— but she'd probably already heard about Dallas's seven possession convictions. "Darry raises us real good," I continued to babble, hoping to hit on the magic phrase that'd make her leave us alone. "He grounds us and we have to do chores and be in by curfew, and we definitely can't have drugs. When our Uncle Gene came to visit—"

"Okay," she cut off, and put a hand on my shoulder. "Okay, honey. Can we talk? Woman to woman?"

"I don't think—"

"Yeah, sure," I said, getting up from the table— averting my eyes, so I wouldn't have to see death glare number two and lose my nerve. "We can go to my room."

* * *

"These are pretty," she said, looking around at the drawings I'd pinned up on the walls. She was lying. She thought they were a hot mess and wanted to replace them with knockoff Monets. "You'd be even better with lessons, you know."

"I'm fine, thanks." I tried to smile and landed on a grimace, digging my nails into my thighs. What the hell could I say to break through awkwardness this _palpable_? "So... how's Lubbock?"

"Not bad," she said, "if you're into rodeo and humidity. But it wasn't too much trouble to haul up here, honest. Like I told your brother, I certainly don't want to drag you anywhere."

"Even when you're married?" I asked, my eyebrows shooting up as I noticed the diamond on her finger for the first time. "Your husband don't mind you just leavin'?"

"We're separated." She gave it a cursory glance, as though she'd forgotten she had it on. "Temporarily. He's workin' on an oil rig in Austin right now, and I guess when he comes back we'll remember why we got married in the first place." She propped her chin up with her fist. "Though between you an' me, the money he brings home from the rig is more than enough marriage for me."

My mom sure hadn't married my dad for his money. Maybe that was why they'd _stayed_ married for twenty years.

"You don't want to live with me, do you?" she asked noncommittally, dragging a hand down my bedspread. Her ring catching on the snags, the loose threads, everything coming apart.

"Did you really expect me to?" _Count to ten, get control of your temper, Jasmine—_ nah, lost cause. "I don't know one thing about you— I didn't even know you _existed_ 'til last week. Now I'm just supposed to pack up and move right in?"

"This wasn't my decision," she said, something brittle coming into her voice. "Aunts and uncles get custody before brothers and sisters, legally, and your social worker's worried about the income bein' spread too thin around here. Believe me, this has all been a shock on my end, too."

"Nobody's _makin'_ you do this." So I was the sacrificial lamb. The one who had to leave so that the rest of them could stay. "You could've said no. Any time at all. Still can."

"Honey, I'm sorry," she sighed, softening up again. "It'll be fun with me, I promise— better than a bunch of rough boys makin' messes all over the place. I always wanted a daughter."

 _I never wanted another mother_ , _and only I get to bitch about the boys' messes_ , I tried to say, but she reached out to touch me again, and it knocked the breath straight out of my lungs. "You have beautiful hair," she said, running her fingers through a few strands, and I was shocked to hear the compliment— Mom had dropped more than one unladylike word about it when I was a kid, trying and failing to stop it from snagging in combs. "You look like— well, it doesn't matter who you look like. Like Jennifer Jones, there we go."

I would've preferred Marilyn, or even Liz Taylor— Sylvia had always pegged me as a Liz when we flipped through _Cosmopolitan_ together— but I'd take it. Nicest thing I'd heard from her since she walked in.

"Soda and Pony are gonna be back soon," Darry said too loudly, appearing in the doorway— a.k.a, back from harassing the poor waitresses at the drugstore with straw wrappers. "And Jasmine has school tomorrow. She oughta be in bed."

"It's only seven-thirty," I started to protest, but Aunt Rose had already gotten up.

"Don't want to overstay my welcome," she said. "I'll meet the boys some other time, I suppose." She picked up her purse slowly, slinging it over her shoulder. "I wish we could've gotten off on a better foot, Darrel," she added, and the worst part was that she sounded genuine.

He didn't take long shepherding her out the door, and, as predicted, didn't take long coming back to rip me a new one. "What part of 'let me handle this' wasn't clear to you?"

"You keep handlin' it the way you do, Auntie and I are gonna be havin' a lot more private conversations than that." I flopped backwards onto the bed, my head colliding with the pillow hard enough to sting. "What'd you want me to do, splash that teacup in her face?"

"What'd she even want to talk about?" A barrage of questions, flying at me faster than bullets. "Why couldn't she say it in front of me? What'd you tell her about us?"

"I told her how much I hate you and can't wait to get some of her husband's sweet, sweet oil money, obviously."

"You think you're real funny, huh." Wasn't much of a question; he looked like a snake about to strike. "You'd better keep that mouth shut in court. Everything you say can and will be used against you— don't you _get_ it? That woman didn't come here for a damn tea party— she wanted to dig up evidence. Shit she can use to prove that I can't take care of you."

"Thanks, Darry." My hands were curling into fists involuntarily, blood rushing to my brain as I sat up against the headboard. If he wanted a fight, well, I'd been itching for a good one all night. "At _no_ point did it occur to me that she can take me with her whenever she feels like it. Thought just didn't cross my mind before you showed up."

He was about to say something, snap back at me even worse, but then he turned away and brought his palm down on my dresser— a temper tantrum tap, barely enough to vent any spleen. "You need to be careful, smartmouth," he finally said, the words quieter and sadder than I'd expected, and I froze at hearing Dad's old nickname from him. "This family's enough of a mess already."

"I'm sorry," I started to say, as deflated as he was, but he left before I could finish the sentence.


	6. Toxic

So, fair warning here: there's a flashback to sexual assault in this chapter. I don't think it's hit M-level, but seriously, reader discretion advised.

* * *

"Well, this is certainly a... delicate situation."

 _You don't say._

"Mrs. Larson, according to Oklahoma state law, does undoubtedly have custodial rights— to all three Curtis minors," the judge said, shuffling the papers on his desk. I sweated under the fluorescent lights in his office, trying to keep up a bored, defiant look, but failing miserably— failing miserably at not looking at _Mrs. Larson_ across the room, too, as fresh and put-together as a spring daisy. "However, the social worker assigned to this case is primarily concerned with the welfare of Jasmine, and I'm inclined to agree with these concerns. A home that may be adequate for two boys might be far from appropriate for a young lady, and I don't doubt that the financial situation would greatly improve with one fewer dependent."

I hated the way he talked about us, like figures in his black and white file, but he spoke up again before I could dwell on it for too long. "I'm reluctant to make any permanent decisions, though, considering the recent tragedy the Curtis family has experienced." Oh, thank God. The sympathy card finally worked in our favor. "And, of course, the minor's unfamiliarity with you, Mrs. Larson."

I crossed both my fingers and my toes, but I was still shit out of luck when his mouth swung open again. "Jasmine will remain in her current home with her brother Darrel, for the time being. But I'm going to order visitation, one day a week. After a six month period, this court will reconvene to make the most informed decision possible about custody arrangements."

Visitation. One day a week. At her house. Well, at least that was better than having to spend _every_ day of the week at her house... for now.

Darry prodded me between my shoulderblades and swept me out of the courtroom as fast as he could, before Rose noticed us strolling off. "That went well," he said, sounding mostly genuine. "Honest, that went well. Better than I expected."

"He didn't say I get to stay here— he just said he'll decide in six months."

"Visitation ain't even close to full custody— you have _got_ to be kiddin' me."

But no, Darry's inhuman powers of perception were 100% functional right then. Those really were our brothers milling around the door, trying to look inconspicuous, but sticking out horribly in torn jeans when the rest of the building looked like they were headed to the Ritz. "So what'd he say?" Pony burst out as Darry approached them, the vein in his forehead beginning to pulsate. "Door's so thick, you can't hear nothin' through it."

"The hell are y'all doin' here?" Darry demanded, pointing at each one in turn. " _You_ have work. _You_ have a biology test today, and I sure didn't spend an hour last night on those flashcards for you to be playin' hooky."

"Hey, I got it all under control," Soda said with a wink in my direction. "Today both Pony an' I have come down with nasty one-oh-four fevers. Don't worry, the secretary at Will Rogers is dead convinced I'm you. I made sure to throw a lot of 'ma'am's in there."

"Well, you had better make miraculous recoveries and haul ass right back to where you're supposed to be, 'cause this is ridiculous," Darry just went on lecturing, crossing his arms hard enough to flex his biceps. "You couldn't wait a few hours? You had to blow off your responsibilities and hang around a courthouse you sure weren't invited to— in those clothes—"

"Nice to finally meet you boys."

And there was Rose, swooping right into this touching, typical family scene (Darry hollering, us averting our gazes and trying to look as innocent as possible) in a cloud of lilac perfume. "Wish it could've been under better circumstances," she blithely continued, apparently unaware that four out of four Curtises in the nearby vicinity loathed her. "So the handsome one must be Soda, and you must be—"

"What's the verdict?" Pony asked Darry, like she'd never appeared at all. "What'd the judge say?"

"Great manners," she muttered, visibly deflated.

Darry no doubt would've gone off on Pony in any other circumstances, but with her being her, he settled for a feeble pointed look. "Visitation one day a week, 'til the judge can make a permanent decision. That really excitin' enough for you two to bust in here? Now say hi to your aunt like I didn't raise you in a barn."

"Hi," Pony said, his eyes fixed on the floor, barely brushing his fingertips against hers. Soda just stared her down with the unabashed hostility he usually reserved for Socs... a category she more than fell into.

"I'm sure we can all get to know each other better in the next few months," she said cheerily, yet the way she kept sliding her wedding ring up and down betrayed her nervousness. "I understand you're upset, but I promise nothing much'll change. It'll be like going to visit your cousin across town."

"She ain't our cousin," Soda said sharply. "She's our _sister_."

She sighed, and apparently decided that she'd had enough Curtis for one day. "Fine," she exhaled, giving me a pat on the shoulder. "Jasmine, baby, we can pick a date next week, okay? I'll call you."

 _Don't call me baby._

"You need to cut it out," Darry said once she went back to hovering around her lawyer. "At least try not to insult her that obviously."

"What?" Soda demanded, his jaw growing slack. "Thought you hated her more than either of us put together."

He intertwined his fingers and squeezed like he was trying to break his hands. "Jasmine had the right idea, okay?"

I had the good grace not to look up at the ceiling for flying pigs.

"We can't keep antagonizing her and making sure she knows we don't want her around," he went on, his eyes flickering over to where she was talking to her swanky lawyer. "I get it, it's hard for me too, but we don't need her as even more of an enemy than she already is. Let's just act as boring and wholesome as possible, be real sweet to her, and maybe she'll back off."

"That bitch wants to up an' take Jasmine from us 'cause she thinks her real family ain't got enough money." Soda's grip on Pony's shoulder tightened. "Why should we play nice with her?"

This wasn't fun-loving Soda, singing terrible Beatles medleys in the shower and ruining all our food with blue dye and doing back handsprings off the porch. This was the Soda who took on Tim Shepard after he'd stolen from us and returned with a shattered jaw and drunk, wild eyes— and Mom's watch. He didn't come out often, but when he did, it was like watching a tornado chew up a house.

"'Cause like it or not, Sodapop, she's got a lot of leverage over us," Darry said. "In her delusional little mind, she's comin' to save Jasmine from the hood— you know, like Miss Edwards and her do-gooder type. The more shit we give her right now, the more we dig our heels in, the more likely it is that this becomes the world's ugliest custody battle. And d'you really think Mr. Clark's gonna make sure we come out on top there?"

(Mr. Clark was our 'lawyer', one of Dad's old friends from the construction union. He was fine with mostly being paid in beer and IOUs, which made him the only lawyer we could afford.)

"Usin' SAT words don't make you right—"

"Bein' the _big_ brother does, though," Darry finished, looking at him the same way I looked at Pony when I wanted him to take my turn throwing out the trash, and that was enough to cow him. "So you gonna mind me, or not? 'Cause I got enough to worry about with all this, without that broad's hurt feelings."

He said nothing, which Darry took as a sign of submission. "C'mon, Pepsi-Cola, let's get outta here," he sighed. "I guess you two can't go back _now_... Pony, your nose had better be in a book while I'm at work, and Soda, you go do the laundry and the vacuuming— it shouldn't always have to be Jasmine's job. This ain't a vacation."

Soda took hold of my hand for a second as we walked out, squeezing hard enough to turn my knuckles white.

* * *

The day I finally saw Angela in the library, she was licking a battery— the tip of her pink tongue darting out, connecting with the cathode, then retreating back inside her mouth.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, half-alarmed, half-intrigued as I set a pile of books down on the table. "'Cause it sure as shit don't look like algebra."

She smiled at me. I didn't like her smiles much, and it took me a minute to realize that they reminded me of Rose's— lips closed, eyes narrowed condescendingly. "It's supposed to be one-eighth of an orgasm. The electric shock."

"Give me that," I said, returning the cold smile, and stuck my tongue in the same place she'd put hers— I felt a brief fizzle shiver down my spine, then nothing at all. "You're wastin' your time. It ain't."

"You don't seem like the kind of girl who'd know," she said teasingly, snatching it from my grasp. "Then again, don't think Curly would've invited you to his stupid bonfire if you was totally square."

"Mad _you_ didn't get invited?"

"You kiddin' me?" she snorted. "You think I wanna hit up a party with both my brothers there? Good luck even tryna grab a cup of punch." She let out a melodramatic huff and leaned back in her chair until it was only balancing on two legs. "'Sides, Tim's givin' me nonstop static lately. _Pay attention at school, Angela. I better not catch you with another whiskey bottle under your bed, Angela. Quit sellin'—_ it don't matter what. But I especially don't wanna be anywhere near him right now."

She didn't give me a chance to process that before she got close to my face. "You probably think I'm real stupid," she said. "'Least the principal does, or else you wouldn't have gotten stuck teachin' me my ABC's. I'm smart— my mama had me tested in kindergarten an' everything. I just don't give a shit. Curly's the dumbass who got held back."

"Well, lookit what the cat dragged in." Of course, Curly chose that exact moment to come over and yank on one of Angela's tight curls. "Don't talk shit 'bout me to your friends, little sis."

"What are you doin' here?" she demanded, batting his hand away before he could grab hold of another one. "Don't you got your own tutoring session with the rest of the special kids?"

"Came to keep an eye on you, like Timmy ordered, see that you're studyin' hard," he said, rifling through the crumpled worksheets in his backpack and pulling out some chewing tobacco. "I'm surprised you lasted the whole week without flushin' some girl's head down the pot, Ange. Now you just gotta remember to open them books."

"Shut up, _Carlos_. 'Least I didn't have to repeat the seventh grade like you."

"Hey," he said with an unabashed shrug, "you try the kinda school they hold in juvie. You really think the nice teachers in there are interested in followin' the state of Oklahoma's guidelines for seventh grade learnin' objectives? A day when no one got shanked on a desk was a good day." Then he did a double take. "Actually, you better not try it. Tim'd kill me."

She fished a crumpled dollar bill out of her bra and threw it in front of him. "Fuck off. We're busy."

He immediately pocketed it. "With what, exactly—" As he caught sight of the battery, he laughed with his mouth wide open, like my father had, so far I could see his cracked molars. "Oh, _man_. You two read that dumbass article in Cosmo about—" He made a V with his fingers and waggled his tongue between it. "Damn, Angel, you don't have to try this hard to pretend you're still a virgin. This is just sad."

She slowly cranked her middle finger up at him.

"Dunno 'bout you, though," he said, turning away from her to raise his eyebrows in my direction. "Darry an' Soda fit you with a chastity belt yet, or is it already too late?"

"Mind your business," I muttered, unconsciously crossing one leg over the other— looking down long enough to put my arrogance back on like a crown. "You're gonna have to at least buy me dinner before you make the moves on me. I ain't that easy."

Before Curly could make another crack about me being any kind of easy, Angela had already removed another bill from the same hiding place. "Take it and don't bother us again, or I'mma tell Tim that you stole half his Playboys and cut the centerfolds out."

He left fast enough to leave clouds of dust in his wake, after that threat. "I got a test on Monday," she said, opening a book for the first time since I'd known her. Her voice flat and hard. "You know how to solve quadratic equations?"

Thank you, I wanted to say, but I didn't. Because the truth was, I wasn't a virgin. Not by a long shot.

* * *

 _The worst part of someone dying is going back to normal. Once you're done with the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, the coroner, the funeral arrangements, the sick melodrama of it all, and something inside your brain snaps, leaves the misery behind. You start thinking about minutiae— what's for lunch, when the next episode of Bewitched is going to air, what a bitch and a half your history homework is– and no matter how much you scold yourself, try to make yourself focus on the pain (because who forgets their parents are dead), it's never all-encompassing again._

 _"You gotta forget about it," Sylvia said, shoving another Solo cup of beer into my hand— I wanted to lash out at her, explain the stupidity of saying that when I needed to remember above all, but instead I took a sip and tried not to gag. She didn't deserve that, when they'd practically been her parents too. "C'mon. You look hot. Let's find some guys and forget about it."_

 _She led me down the rickety stairs to the Sigma Chi frat house's basement, which was bathed in a dim, sickly red light, giving everyone's faces an eerie glow. "Try and act natural," she whispered, pinching the apples of her cheeks and leaning against the wall._

 _"You want a light?"_

 _I jumped as a tall guy in a Sigma Chi wifebeater approached me, running his hand through his dark hair. "Sure," I said as I held one up for him, trying to make it sound like I'd smoked a million cigarettes before, only for the flame to sputter out as I put it into my open mouth. "I'm Jasmine."_

 _He laughed. "Don't take up smoking, baby," he said, hooking an arm around my waist and pulling me closer to him. "Jesus Christ. Don't you know you're supposed to keep your lips shut? I'm Graham."_

 _"I forgot," I said, slurring the words; I felt disconnected from my body, like I couldn't control my own limbs._

 _"How old are you, huh?"_

 _"Eighteen. Eighteen, yeah."_

 _"Like hell you are," he said, but then he kissed me and pulled down my shirt to grab my breast anyway; the skin around my mouth burned from his stubble, and I could taste something harder than beer on his tongue._

 _The one sober, unaffected corner of my mind, the one that still had the gift of fear, told me to break loose and run like hell._

 _The rest of it told me to thread my fingers through his mussed hair, arch into him, try to mimic Dally and Sylvia's fumbling, slurpy kisses. I wasn't a little girl anymore, was I? No more daddy to scold me for being out past curfew, only brothers who were too adrift in their grief to stop me. And when he pulled me onto a couch, straddling his lap, I forgot everything I'd ever had in my mind._

 _"You wanna get out of here?" he muttered into my ear, reaching down the waistband of my skirt. Fingers curling up, and it hurt, but I didn't say anything. I bit down on my lip hard enough to leave a tooth-shaped imprint in the rouge instead. "You're a cool girl. We could be more than friends."_

 _My head felt dangerously light as I stumbled, stumbled, stumbled, falling into his arms and leaning against his beer-damp shirt. My anchor. "Come on," he said, dragging me back up the stairs before I could object to anything. "Ain't you sexy, shit. You must've broken a lot of hearts before you met me."_

 _"Yeah, sure," I agreed stupidly, seeing stars in my field of vision as he led me into the empty room and deposited me on the bed, throwing his body weight on top of me again and sliding his tongue back down my throat. "I don't wanna... have sex. Not now."_

 _"'Course you do," he said, and somehow my skirt had already slipped halfway down my thighs. He grabbed a handful of my hair, crunching it in his big fist, and brought me closer to him again. "The hell'd you think we were gonna do up here, play cards?"_

 _"I—"_

 _"Shut up," he said, still smiling, and that was when he draped a hand over my throat. I was too drunk to be afraid, yet. I didn't understand. "I know you want it, so quit playin' hard to get. I ain't in the mood for that shit right now."_

 _I made a noise, and he squeezed hard enough to pixilate my vision, pulled me up, pressed his lips against mine. "Shut up," he said, biting down the side of my neck, lower, lower, and—_

 _He hurt me._

 _My daddy loved me, but he loved me like I was a piece of fine china, most of the time— pretty, but fragile, easily broken if he touched it too much. He didn't know what to do with a girl, and he never really tried. Would he have beaten this guy into a coma, if he'd been around? Or would he have had a million recriminations, penetrating me like needles in a voodoo doll— why were you dressed like that? Why did you drink so much? What did you expect? Didn't I raise you better than this?_

 _When I got home, it was three in the morning. My tights were torn, there were mascara trails running down my face, and I could barely walk straight. Darry was awake, but he was even drunker than I was, so he didn't care._

* * *

 _Get on your knees._

Just forget about it.

 _Stop it. I said stop it. Stop it. I'm gonna throw up. I can't breathe. It hurts. _

Just forget about it.

 _You look a lot prettier when you don't talk._

Just forget about it.

* * *

What a tradition— coming home, washing down my after-school snack with a few swigs of vodka. Not enough to arouse too much suspicion from Soda or Darry, but just enough to smooth some of the panic and bring back the familiar malaise. I wondered if it'd be any harder to carry out at Rose's place.

And it was a tradition that I immediately abandoned as I walked through the door.

"Johnny, Christ hell, your _face_."

The sink was a spill of copper, dripping down from his nose, all over his hands, clogging the drain. "I'm fine," he said, looking up at me like a deer with its leg caught in a trap. "Sorry 'bout the mess, but it just ain't stoppin'. Sorry. I'm sorry."

"Quit apologizin'," I said, my tone sharper than I intended. "Like I give a damn about stains in the sink right now, glory. Sit down 'fore you faint."

Unbelievably, considering the circumstances, his lips twitched into the tiniest smile. I wished he'd do it more often— it looked like the sun was rising on his face when he did. "You sure cuss a lot for a girl, Jas."

"Yeah, no kiddin'," I scoffed, rummaging around in the drawers under the sink for a reasonably clean washrag. "Darry's always tellin' me that he's gonna wash my mouth out with Ivory if he hears me say 'fuck' one more time. Here, use this."

He held it up to his nose to stem the flow of blood, which was slow-going. Damn, the sink _would_ be a bitch to scrub out, but I had bigger concerns right then. "What happened?" I asked, trying to be soothing so as not to spook him.

He shifted uncomfortably in the seat— either a sign that he was nervous, as usual, or that he'd had the shit whooped out of him recently. Knowing Johnny, both was the most reasonable explanation. "My old man don't like me much," he said, with as much emotion as he'd use talking about the weather report. "It ain't a big deal. He got laid off from another job, I was there. I'm fine. I can take it."

"Of course it's a big deal," I snapped before I could stop myself. Fuck, if I weren't barely 5'4 and barely capable of beating up a wet hen, I'd go over to his place and slash his tires or something... but in my current bodily state, I'd probably just land myself on the eleven o'clock news. "That's _wrong_ , Johnny. He shouldn't beat the hell outta you 'cause you're standin' near him."

"Better me than my mama."

"Johnny, we've all met your mama." Damn, I wished Darry was here, because he could usually be more polite on the subject of Johnny's mama than I was. Not that I was ever very polite on any subject, period. "She deserves a good slap a hell of a lot more than you."

He looked away and said nothing, his face contorted in some silent pain. "I'm sorry," I started to say, because I got it, I got being small and helpless when you wanted to be strong, when Dally burst in the front door.

"Left my goddamn jacket here for the millionth time, and if you think I'm gonna deal with Norm to get my other ones outta the house, you got another thing comin'— shit, Johnnycake. Oh, fuck."

Stricken, he came over and practically shoved me out of the way, prodding the edges of his black eye. "That fucking—" he turned around and cussed up a storm that even I found impressive, then took a plate from the counter and smashed it on the kitchen floor. "You don't even have to tell me who did it."

"Dally, we love you an' all," I said before he could get to the other one he was eyeing, "but those still ain't your plates, so cool it."

He gave me a strange look when I said 'love', meeting my eyes, and I returned it steadily. I didn't mean anything by it. We loved all of Soda's friends. "Sorry," he said, the tip of his tongue flicking out to wet his dry lips— a sure sign of the apocalypse. "Just fucking pisses me off, Johnny. You sure you don't want me to introduce him to my switch?"

"He'll just make me pay for it later," Johnny said, grimacing. "Trust me."

"You gotta start fightin' back." He grasped him by the shoulders and shook a tiny bit, not even enough to startle him. "Look at me. My daddy used whoop the daylights outta me too, and then I came back from juvie when I was thirteen and showed him who was boss with a toothbrush shiv. He don't do that so much anymore."

Before Johnny could explain that his old man had close to a foot and a good hundred pounds on him, or call bullshit on that entire story, I intervened. "You'd better lie down and pinch your nose shut, to stop the bloodflow," I told him, gesturing towards the couch. "I'll get you a bag of peas."

"Thanks," Dallas said once Johnny had collapsed there, pale and wan— and here came the second horseman. For some reason, his eyes were fixed on the broken plate. "You didn't have to look after him an' everything."

"I mean, he was bleedin' all over the place," I said with a nervous laugh. "Couldn't just leave him to it. I know he's your best friend."

He leaned closer to me, brushing his fingertips over the top of my hand, and for a second I thought—

"I left my jacket here," he repeated, pulling away to grab it from the next chair over. Maybe it was just the bad lighting, but I could've sworn a hint of color had risen in his cheekbones.

"You comin' to Shepard's bonfire tomorrow night?"

"So long as I can dodge ol' Tim—" He stopped long enough to scrutinize me. "Here's the part where I snitch to Darry and tell him how you're part of the Shepards' social calendar now. You know this is a little rougher than Sylvia's sweet sixteen, right?"

I tilted my head to the side. "You ain't my brother."

"You're right. I ain't." He headed for the door, but he didn't leave without turning around to face me again. "See you tomorrow, then."

Touching performance from him, playing nice like that, but he really could've rounded it off by cleaning up his own damn plate.


	7. Under the Influence

• Sorry in advance if the wait between chapters gets longer— not to bore you guys with more details about my health, but I've finally figured out that my never-ending bronchitis is mono, and it's left me with an impressive amount of brain fog. Trying to push through it and write anyway.

• Elvis owns his song 'Fever' and The Kinks own 'All Day and All of the Night', not me

• Alternate title: Jasmine Makes Even Worse Decisions

* * *

"Yeah, Darry, like I said, the kids are all right— I'm gonna pretend that you didn't just call me one of the kids when I pay half the mortgage— _no_ , breakfast ain't blue, it's purple— burn the house down, sure. Enjoy fishin'. You don't get out enough, man." He dropped the phone with a loud click. "Pony, c'mon, pass the joint already. You've had it for half an hour straight."

"More like five seconds." Pony slid the roach over anyway, the moment Soda commanded it. "What happened to gettin' drunk off of life?"

"Hey, I said _drunk,_ not stoned." Soda grabbed it off the coffee table, put his feet up, and took an obnoxiously long drag. "You better not let Darry hear one peep 'bout this, or next time he's outta town, he's gonna hire us all a sitter. I mean it."

I padded in from the hall, yawning, still in my pajamas. At least they'd had enough sense to throw the front door open, so they wouldn't stink up the entire living room. "Don't even think about it," Soda said, and my mouth snapped shut before I could say anything. "You can have some hotcakes, though," he added with a conciliatory grin. "Sandy cooked them. She's great at hotcakes."

Oh, there she was, wrapped around Soda like a kudzu vine and rubbing her thumb over the top of his hand. I'd never been very impressed with my brothers' taste in women. Darry had only had the one, all through high school— Judy Baker, who I was 99.9% certain couldn't have picked any of his family members out of a lineup, and who'd staged a hysterical three-day meltdown after Darry had suggested driving Dad's truck to prom was more in his price range than renting a limo. (Hey, in his defense, Dad had already taken the liberty of stocking the glove compartment with rubbers. He wasn't raising no babies.) On the other hand, Soda's many girls hadn't ever quite lasted long enough to do anything but make Mom purse her lips and say _she might be dressed, but her butt don't know it._

Sandy was different, though. Sandy wasn't like the other girls Soda had brought home, girls like me and Sylvia and Angela— tough, loud, incapable of taking shit from anyone lying down. She was real soft and pretty, always dressed in modest pastels, and I'd bet my left ass cheek that the blonde in her hair was natural.

Freaked me out, to be honest. I wondered how many skeletons she had stashed in that pastel closet.

"Sandy, listen, I want our first girl to be named Frannie, okay? After my mama."

"What are you doin' now?" I asked, my head near snapping off my neck as I stopped shoveling hotcakes onto my plate. (Didn't taste half bad, either, especially with syrup— another point in her favor.)

"We're pickin' out what names we want for our kids," Soda said, like he wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary, then turned back to her. "She was a great mama. Can't think of a better name for a little girl than hers."

Sandy looked like this deer Dad had run over with his pickup, in the split second before collision. "Unless you want your mama in there too," Soda said. "What's her name again?"

"Betty," she said, "and I can't stand her, so that's fine, baby. We can call her Frannie."

"Great," Soda cheerfully continued. "Darry's gonna name his son after himself like our daddy did with him, I know it. So if it's a boy, what about Eugene? Our Uncle Gene's sorta crazy, but he's far out, honest. I didn't even know kush came in _kinds_ before he came to visit last winter."

"Ain't Jasmine Eugenia enough for him?" Pony chimed in. "Dad's middle name was Patrick. That's a good name."

"Babe, if you want your daddy in there—"

"His name's Glenn, and he ran off to Miami when I was three," she said grimly. "Patrick is fine. Or Gene. Whatever you want."

I couldn't take any more of this. "Soda, can I talk to you for a sec? In private?"

"Sure," he said with his movie-star grin, like there wasn't a damn thing in the world wrong— couldn't even get up from the couch and saunter into the hall without giving Sandy a slurpy kiss goodbye first. "Everything okay?"

"... You got anything you wanna tell me before Darry finds out?" I made sure to enunciate every syllable, to penetrate his happy haze. "How far along is she? You sure it's yours?"

He blinked at me. "Oh, shit, you got the wrong idea," he then said, doubled over from laughter. "Come on, Jas, we're bein' careful. She ain't in the family way."

"Then why are you in the living room talking 'bout whether you want a little Darry the Third or not?"

"We're just plannin' our future together," he said, giving me a bemused look. "We're gonna get married real soon, after she graduates, and then there'll be kids, right?" He rubbed his chin between two fingers. "You know, I want at least five, so names ain't that big a deal. We'll have room for a lot of them. Maybe even one after Auntie Jasmine."

"Don't you think you're movin' a little fast?" I whispered, refusing to be moved by his 'Auntie Jasmine' line. I'd been buttered up better than _that_. "How long have you two been an item, six months? And you're already marchin' her to the altar?"

"Jas, listen," he said, "I love her, okay? She ain't like the other broads I've dated— she's the one for me, you dig? She's pretty, and funny, and she really _gets_ me. 'Sides, Mom and Dad were only twenty when they had Darry. Sandy and I won't be that much younger."

"You sure that's what _she_ wants?" I just had to ask. "She ain't even graduated yet."

"Come on," he scoffed, "'course that's what she wants. What do little girls play— Barbie and Ken, married and movin' into their dreamhouse, right? What else would she want?"

 _Not even one other thing in this world, huh,_ threatened to erupt from my mouth, but instead I dropped the subject of Sodapop's nuptial plans and asked if I could go to the Shepards' bonfire.

His brow furrowed. "If I tell you no, Darry's gonna find out about me an' Pony tokin' up, ain't he."

"And Mrs. Tolchuck wrote that you were 'hopelessly dim' on your third grade report card."

He smacked me in the arm. "The Shepards are bad news. Shouldn't have to teach you your ABC's, here. I don't even like Pony hanging 'round Curly and pickin' up his godawful habits."

"I'll get Pony to Two-Bit's or somethin' tonight," I wheedled. "So you an' Sandy can have the place to yourselves. Candles, rose petals, silk sheets..."

Yeah, he wasn't Darry— between his big brother instincts and his libido, I'd place my bets on his libido every time. "... Curfew's after midnight," he said with a hard pat to my shoulder.

I made sure to give him a kiss on the cheek before I went back to the kitchen.

* * *

"You're _shittin'_ me," Sylvia gurgled. "He's pickin' out the names of their kids? And she didn't run away screamin' from that hot mess the second he suggested Frances and Eugene?" She tipped her head up again and knocked it against the faucet, splattering me. "Tammy, now that's a cute name. Or Jennifer. Something from this decade."

"Would you hold still?" Goddamn, was this bleach hard to put into her hair, when she always wiggled around like a kid with a worm down the back of her dress. "She's a weird one; I can't read her at all. Dunno if she's really into Soda's three kids and a white picket fence shit, or what."

"Can't believe he forgot Darry's already got dibs on Frannie, too."

"At the rate he's goin', he'll be a daddy long before Darry gets around to nothin'. I'm fixin' to cut some baby stroller ads out the Sears catalogue for the happy couple." I wrung her hair out hard and wrapped it up in the stained towel around her neck. "You know you're gonna have to chop all this off in a couple years, right? I feel like I'm an accomplice to a crime against your roots here."

"Hey, gentlemen prefer blondes, right?" She smiled at me, all bright teeth and brighter lipstick. "I keep tellin' you, don't knock it before you try it."

"Don't even think about it," I said with an exaggerated shudder. "I'm not walkin' around with orange hair waitin' for that shit to sink in."

"At least lemme give you a French braid," she said, sitting down on the edge of the tub and motioning for me to sit on the damp bath mat. "I swear to God, when I start my salon, you'll probably be too scared to even walk through the door."

The easy intimacy between us was the same as she threaded her fingers through my hair and I reclined into the cradle of her thighs. I didn't know why I felt the sudden, horrible urge to break it.

"You remember that night after my parents' funeral?" My voice sounded foreign to me; I wanted to scoop the words up and shove them back inside my mouth, abort this entire conversation, but I couldn't stop now that I'd started.

"Yeah," she said, excavating a long-forgotten memory. "Yeah, we went to that party at Sigma Chi, right? God, what a waste— frats always are. Shit booze, and there ain't nothin' I got in common with them Socs, 'cept fuckin'." I couldn't see her face, or much of anything except my own knees, but I imagined she was smirking. "You hooked up with a cute one, didn't you, though? You two still talk?"

My tongue felt like a leaden lump in my mouth. Because the words weren't right, and they weren't fair, but if I started talking, they'd come out anyway— _where the hell did you go? Why weren't you looking out for me? Did you even see what he wanted to do to me?_

"No," I finally said. "We don't talk."

She finished the braid, neatly tying it off with a rubber band. "Ugh, so just forget about it," she said. "Let's go watch Patty Duke before Ray gets home."

If only I could.

* * *

The Shepards' idea of a bonfire was dousing a busted car in gasoline and lighting it up. Guess that worked about as well as wood.

"The fuzz are gonna come soon enough, ain't they," I asked Nate, surveying the abandoned lot. An old, tinny radio was blaring 'All Day and All of the Night' as loud as it could go, it was almost impossible to breathe through the thick haze of nictoine and grass, Maria Teresa Hernandez had already taken her bra off in a game of strip poker and seemed to be fixing to lose her skirt soon enough... Sandy had to have one hell of a cootch, if Soda was letting me hit this joint up.

"Shit, girl, a Shepard party don't end 'til someone gets shot or a bottle gets broken over someone's face. 'Course the fuzz are gonna come." He seemed sharper out here with his crew, even with the joint hanging from his mouth, more agile than I'd ever seen him slumming around his mama's house— for the first time, I stopped wondering why Tim kept him around.

Speak of the devil.

I hadn't caught more than a few glimpses of Tim in years, though his outfit kept on decent-enough terms with my brothers', but I could immediately tell that he was dangerous in a way that even Dallas wasn't— his bulging dark eyes scanned every inch of the chaos, analyzing it. Unlike the rest of the party (including Curly, who was chugging beer out of a funnel), he was stone-cold sober. "Go keep an eye on them clowns from Brumly," he told Nate, gesturing behind him— I didn't have to look to know that they were probably setting something else on fire. "Did anyone _invite_ them, or did they just see free booze and come runnin'?"

"Pretty sure Curly said they could be here." Nate scratched the top of his head. "Something 'bout 'the more, the merrier'?"

"The more my blood pressure goes up, the less merry his life gets," Tim muttered. I couldn't take my eyes off of his scar, arching from temple to jaw in a livid slash. "You the Curtis girl? The one who's stuck tutorin' my sister?"

I managed to give him a jerky nod. "Man, I don't envy you the job," he said with a short laugh, "but you'd better not quit now. I'm all for anythin' that keeps lil' Angel in school and off the pole." He looked like he was about to turn to go, but then he stayed where he was. "Your kid brother— his finger heal up okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine now," I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as I could about it. "Darry 'bout had a heart attack over the whole thing, but Pony's all right."

"Darry got up to dumber shit, when we was kids," he dismissed with a wave of his hand, but he didn't give me a chance to process that choice bit of information. "Just tell Ponyboy I meant it— I'mma kill his dumb ass if I catch him at that again. Always figured he was smarter than my idiot brother, and I don't like bein' proven wrong."

 _Never would've guessed._

Dallas found me later with my blouse slipping down my shoulders, a god-knows-what-number glass of Bacardi in hand, chatting up some guy named Joel from Shepard. "He broke his arm fallin' off a goddamn _telephone pole_ he climbed on a dare," I told him between loud, drunken giggles, spilling some booze down my front. "You've gotta be shittin' me. He's really pretendin' he got that bump next to his elbow from fightin' three Socs at once? My brother Ponyboy had to haul his sorry ass home— he'll give you the truth."

"The hell are you doin'?" Dallas drawled, though as dizzy as I was, I wasn't even sure who he'd directed that towards— me, undoing another button, or Joel, hovering over my brassiere.

"She your girl?" He threw his hands up and stepped away from my chest faster than I thought humanly possible, when Dallas gave him a slow nod. "Shit, Winston, I didn't know. Shit, man—"

"Get outta here 'fore you piss yourself," he said, and Joel scurried away like the hounds of hell were upon him. "Thought you'd have higher standards than that. Guess I was wrong."

"So, I'm _your girl_ now." I let my lips curl into a lazy, mocking smirk, getting ready for battle. "Is that right? Could've popped the question with some flowers and chocolates first."

"Had to say somethin', didn't I?" he said, and again, for the millionth goddamn time, he was bullshitting me, 'cause his gaze went from collarbone straight down to sternum straight down the lace and swell of flesh peeking out from between the buttons. "Don't flatter yourself."

Which one of us was he trying to convince?

 _Fever, I'm afire,_ Elvis sang, somewhere in the distance. _Fever, yea, I burn forsooth._

I kissed him, before any kind of reason could override my animal hindbrain, let myself sink into the sea of heat and cheap cologne and three-day-old stubble. Up close, guess he was a man after all and not the machine he pretended to be; his heart beat fast through the thin fabric of his shirt, his skin warmed up under my touch, and yeah, there was no mistaking his dick getting hard.

What the hell. Why the hell not. What did I have left to lose.

He could've yanked me closer to him by the hair, grabbed my breasts, made me his, like I'd expected; instead, he recoiled like I was a hot stove. "You're trashed. I don't even wanna try to count how much you've had, but you're trashed."

I laughed then, a bitter, corrosive howl. Did that matter? Did it really fucking matter? "Come on, you been checkin' me out since I grew tits. You want me. I'm just doin' what you ain't got the balls to do, 'cause you're more scared of Darry and Soda than you were of my daddy."

I'd tried to bait him into kissing me back, or at least slapping me a good one, making me _feel_ something, but no dice. "Listen to me," he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. "You're an absolute fucking mess. And when _I'm_ tellin' you that, you're really in trouble."

"More of a mess than Sylvia?" I slurred. "Thought you liked _your girls_ a little crazy."

"I'm not gonna be the barrel of a gun to you," he said slowly. "Can't believe you're makin' me talk you down, say you ain't thinkin' straight—"

"Since when?" I snorted. "You've seen me, at all them parties, all summer. Pretty damn sure you gave me uppers a few times and told me not to tell my brothers."

"If your brothers find out I fucked you when you were too drunk to put one foot in front of the other, I'll be lucky to leave that conversation with all my limbs attached."

"Quit messin' with me," I said, wanting to hit something from sheer frustration. "And quit pretendin' you don't think you could take my brothers with both hands tied behind your back. What's your real problem?"

"I'm with Sylvia— your friend, Sylvia?" That realization smacked me like a bucket of ice water, almost shocking me out of my stupor. "We're back on, in case you forgot. Pretty sure you hauled ass all the way to Buck's just to tell me I didn't deserve to lick her boots."

"And I'm supposed to believe it's true love, right? Like the Hallmark moment when you cheated on her with Angela? Or when you was in reform school for too long, and she decided to seduce Johnny?"

"At least she don't act like bein' with me is worse than a root canal," he said. "Really makes me feel good about myself, you standin' here and tellin' me to do my worst. Thanks, but I could get more enthusiasm out of a whore for five bucks a pop."

"Fuck you."

"You still think you want me after you're nice and sober, you come and find me," he said. "But even I ain't shitty enough to play along with this trainwreck."

At least I didn't go after him, after he walked away; my last scrap of pride left me that much.

* * *

"You cryin'?"

"Get lost," I said as Curly approached me, refusing to swipe at the faint tear tracks. "I'm drunk. You can cry when you're drunk. What are you doin' here, anyway?"

"Stan from Brumly threw a brick at Mike from our outfit 'cause Mike was pawin' at his girl, and Tim was fixin' to split my skull in half if I didn't get outta his sight." He wobbled closer to me, enough that I could smell the smoke mixed up in his cigarette-burned T-shirt, and took a long swallow out of my whiskey bottle. "Winston told you to go kick rocks, huh? I didn't see that comin'— but don't take it too personal, shit. He pumps an' dumps a new one every week. Look at what he did to my sister."

"This your idea of makin' me feel better?" Goddamn, was I a disaster right now— sitting on a sidewalk curb, tipping more of the bottle down my throat, my tights ripped at the knees. A couple inches off my skirt and I could start turning tricks, no problem. "'Cause it ain't exactly workin'."

"He's an idiot. What else is new." He did that old trick of yawning and wrapping an arm around my shoulder until I was smushed to his side, my head resting on his ribcage, and then he kissed me so suddenly I gasped into his mouth. "I wouldn't do you like that."

I shut up any more godawful movie lines by kissing him back, too hammered to care who he was at that point, pushing him against the fire hydrant beside us— I made myself the aggressor, biting down hard enough on his lower lip to bruise. He'd probably call me a slut to his buddies the next morning, say that all I'd needed to give it up was a few shots and some sugary words, but I pleaded no contest.

Until his hands slithered up the back of my blouse, fumbling with my bra clasp, and the entire pit of my stomach froze solid with dread.

 _Stop it_ , I told myself. _Just relax, for God's sake, get a grip already. Sylvia lost her virginity to her seventh grade Language Arts teacher, and she's fine, she fucks anything on two legs and it doesn't bother her. It's time to grow up. _

I was done with losing, always being some innocent maiden to be defiled or protected in turn. I let him drop my bra to the ground, the pink lace clashing hard with the dirt, and didn't hesitate to pull his shirt off as he led me over to the backseat of Tim's truck. The only thing I cared about was the rubber he flashed me, hanging out of his jeans pocket.

He was right about me. He wasn't taking anything.


	8. Hell is Other People

_I slept with Curly Shepard._

The ache between my legs when I stumbled into consciousness confirmed it, my body strewn awkwardly over his in the backseat. "Motherfucker," I whispered as a wave of nausea washed over me, though whether that was from visceral disgust or just the shots I'd been pounding all night remained to be seen. "Mother _fucker_."

Shit, at least Tim was the _hot_ one.

"Oh, God, why is this empty—"

... Right. Drunk guys' dicks never worked. Crisis averted.

"What the hell?" Curly put his hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sun, then promptly leaned out the rolled-down window and vomited. "Jasmine?"

"Shit shit shit," I muttered, groping around for my bra and remembering exactly where I'd dropped it last night— somewhere next to the fire hydrant. "There's missin' curfew, and there's this."

"Did we—"

"No, Curly, our clothes just magically flew off." I tossed his shirt at him, my fingers catching in the holes; he wiped his mouth with it and threw it aside. "Yes, we did."

"You're sure one for pillow talk," he said, looking woozy. "Didn't last night mean anything to you?"

"Do you _ever_ stop crackin' wise?" I caught a glimpse of the (most likely stolen) watch on his wrist. Eight in the morning. Fuck.

"Do you?"

All right, all right, point taken. "Soda's gonna kill me. Goddamn, he barely let me outta the house in the first place, and now I'm crawlin' back in past dawn."

"Soda's gonna kill you?" He whistled. "After I get home, you'll probably see my body on the news. _Local dumbass, fifteen-year-old Curly Shepard, viciously murdered by his big brother after lettin' Brumly crash his party_."

"We gotta get out of here." I shimmied into my skirt and did my blouse back up, knowing that I'd missed a couple buttons in the process. "Before anyone notices we're gone."

"Not even gonna stick around for a smoke?" He leaned forward on his elbows. "At least promise you'll call me back."

"Fuck you," I said, but not with much heat.

"Already did," he couldn't resist saying. "Shit, you really are hung up on Winston, ain't you?"

I toyed with my mother's necklace, pulling on it until it dug into my windpipe. That didn't calm me down as much as I'd hoped it would.

"He's gonna break your heart, you know. That's kind of what he does."

I smoothed my hair down, but I still smelled like sex, stale nicotine, the cologne he'd taken from his brother. He'd still marked me. "Nobody breaks my heart," I said. "So don't count on it."

* * *

"I been waitin' up for you all night."

And there went my plans to creep inside before anyone noticed I'd been gone, shoes in hand, because the second I opened the front door, I was front and center with the tag team— Soda _and_ Steve, ready to detonate from their spots on the couch. Gag me with a spoon.

"You're the one who told me curfew's past midnight," I said, trying to keep my tone light and breezy. Soda's anger was nothing like Darry's— this was still the JV squad, still prep school. "Never said when past midnight."

"You can really be a selfish little shit sometimes."

Steve's disdain for Ponyboy extended seamlessly to me, though not because I tried to tag along on his and Soda's pick-up operations— because I was friends with Sylvia. I wouldn't call her trying to hook up with Johnny a high point, exactly, but neither was Steve calling Darry all brawn and no brains, you dig?

Didn't matter to him, though. If there was anything Steve Randle knew, it was pointing out the speck in someone else's eye.

"Shouldn't you be headin' home?" I said, throwing it in his face like a handful of sand. "Ain't you got that five dollar paycheck to collect this morning?"

"First of all, _fuck_ you—" Steve said, starting to rise from the couch, but Soda held up a hand to stop him.

"Jasmine," he said in his best kindergarten teacher voice, "where you been? Darry's comin' back for supper— you think I wanted to tell him that I lost you?"

"I'm here now, ain't I?" I was debating the merits of bludgeoning myself unconscious before the interrogation really got underway. "Quit givin' me the third degree already."

"You don't talk to me like that." He brought his fist down hard on his thigh; great, now I-Can-Kick-Tim-Shepard's-Ass Soda had turned that self-righteous rage on me. Just what I wanted for Christmas, Santa. "Last time I ever let you out on my watch, 'cause I can't trust you worth shit. What were you doin' all night, huh? I know the fuzz broke that party up for a reason."

"You ain't Daddy," I snapped. "I'll talk to you however I want, _sir_."

"Lucky you I ain't, 'cause if he was here, he sure would've whooped you good," he said mercilessly— Steve smirked like a cat with a bowl of cream. "I was right, not wantin' you and Pony around them Shepards. You're playing with fire, and you don't even care."

"I'll have to get in line to bend over, Sodapop, 'cause your list of sins is a hell of a lot longer than mine." If he felt like putting on a show, then grab some popcorn, Steve, 'cause it was time for the lead actress. "You been drag racin', goin' out to Buck's, nabbin' hubcaps, comin' home just as wasted as me... but you ain't a girl, right? That makes it all okay."

He muttered some choice cusses under his breath, but he couldn't deny it. If I went down, he'd come crashing right down with me. "We don't all have a rich aunt ready to take us in if Darry loses custody," he finally said. "Maybe you'll be fine, but me an' Pony? You ever think 'bout what'd happen to us if you'd gotten arrested last night?"

"You two got enough of your own dumbassery goin' on to bunk together in a reformatory," I said with a cool, deliberate shrug. "All I did was fuck Curly Shepard."

Soda's mouth opened, shut, opened, shut. "What the _hell_ is wrong with you?" he finally demanded.

(I wasn't entirely sure if he was referring to pre-marital sex in general or just Curly. I didn't care to ask.)

Steve looked at me like I was a piece of gum he'd just scraped off the bottom of his shoe. "Boy howdy, if _my_ kid sister pulled this kinda shit—"

"Last I checked, this was a family discussion, Steven," I said in my sweetest voice.

"Steve _is_ family," Soda insisted. "You think he ain't been worried about you too?"

"I told you," Steve said with a sideline glance at me, "if you keep lettin' her hang around girls like Sylvia, you can't be surprised if she turns out—"

Soda slugged him in the arm— pretty fucking hard, because he collapsed into the couch cushions as fast as a sack of potatoes. "Don't call my sister nothing," he said, low and dangerous. "You're my best friend, man, but I'll knock your lights out."

"You said as much yourself, didn't you?" I was trembling— maybe from anger, maybe from the hangover— but I did my best to hide it. "I'm bein' a real bad girl, ain't I, Soda? A _slut_."

I expected his fury to explode all over me the way it usually did, burning out in a quick rush. I was counting on it. Instead, he pushed himself up from the couch, went into the room he shared with Ponyboy, and didn't even give me the satisfaction of slamming the door behind him. Not so much as a look back.

Today was Sunday; the church preached that miscegnation was wrong, but our mama had dragged us there every week regardless, unwilling to let go of her past. I remembered my best dress's collar starched too stiff, sweat pooling on my brow as I wilted in the pew, the pastor droning on about Jezebel, patron saint of prostitutes and fallen women. Thrown to the dogs for her crimes.

"He's been drivin' around since dawn, lookin' for you," Steve said— I'd forgotten he was there, preoccupied by the hard twist in the pit of my stomach. "You're lucky he's too nice to rat your ass out to Darry. I would."

Steve might've interpreted that as kindness, but after all the cards I'd laid out, I knew better. We were trapped in mutually assured destruction, because even Darry's myopia when it came to Soda's crimes no doubt had its limits— and Soda would never want me punished enough to sacrifice himself for it, in the end.

Victory just tasted a lot like vinegar pooling in my mouth.

* * *

I was chainsmoking my third cigarette on the porch, more out of spite than any real desire for it, when a cherry-red Stingray pulled up in front of me.

"Hey, honey." Rose stepped out, tugging at the scarf on her head to put it back in place. "Your brothers home?"

"Just Soda— Pony's still asleep, and Darry's on a trip." I hurried to stub out the cancer stick, even though she'd already seen it. "Nice ride," I said begrudgingly. "Be careful drivin' that thing around here, though. It'll get stolen 'fore you can say 'car alarm'."

She gave me a look that had meant 'are you shitting me' since the time of the cavemen, and I reassured her with one that still meant 'no, unfortunately serious', dipping my head to the side. "We got a gang, Tiber Street Tigers— they'll rip the brakes right outta any old junker and sell it for scrap. Darry had to fight 'em for his hubcaps once."

It took me a solid five seconds to figure out that if I was trying to prove this was a great neighborhood for a young lady to grow up in, I sure was doing one helluva job. Good thing girls couldn't be lawyers, 'cause I wasn't exactly Clarence Darrow.

"It's been a while since I hit up a good greasy spoon," she said, clearly eager to get that pretty Stingray the hell out of Dodge. "Why don't we go have some lunch? You can show me where all you kids hang out."

If I brought her to a 'hangout' like The Dingo, she'd have me on the interstate down to Lubbock before I could blink— there were always knife fights to bet on, even in broad daylight, and this girl who ran with the River Kings got shot last year on the hood of a Ford. "Sure," I said, sliding into the passenger seat and doing some quick mental calculations. "We can go to Jay's, if you want. It's pretty clean."

(By clean, I meant that the waitresses weren't moonlighting as hookers and the place wasn't a front for money laundering, to my knowledge. I couldn't guarantee the quality of the food, but they drowned it all in enough burning grease to kill any pathogen dead, I hoped.)

"Your brothers show you how to drive yet?"

"Nah," I said with a short laugh, examining the interior carefully. I wasn't proud to know how much the radio would go for. "Guess they're a little afraid of where I might drive off to."

I cranked that radio up, blaring the Stones, and let it drown out every echo inside my skull.

* * *

"All right, that's it."

I sat up straight in the rickety chair, lifting my eyes away from my cup of coffee (black, good for hangovers) and my burger (greasy, definitely not). The easy lull of the road and my bare thighs sticking to the leather of the seat had made me monosyllabic as I batted aside her questions, trapped in my own thoughts, until somehow I blinked and ended up with a Jay's menu in my hands. I hadn't really expected her to pry any further than 'school's fine' and 'turn right here.'

"Give me a light— don't look at me so innocent, I saw what I saw on that porch." I held my lighter to her Kool, then fished one out of my pocket and lit my own, mildly intrigued by the way she was sizing me up. "Maybe I don't know you very well yet— or at all. But something's obviously botherin' you."

If I'd kept my mouth shut that day, or even better, run straight out of that diner, my life could've gone a lot differently. But she'd been inviting in a way I still can't explain, like a snake charmer coaxing me out of my basket. Or maybe I'd just missed my mother, sitting at the kitchen table and listening as I spilled all my secrets, too much to resist.

"I kissed my best friend's boyfriend," I said between sips that burned my throat raw. Out loud, it sounded even more cheap and tawdry than it had in my head, despite all the justifications I'd thrown at it.

"Well, that was your first mistake," she said sympathetically. "You don't kiss boys, boys kiss you. How'd he take it?"

"Bad." The too-strong air conditioning raised goosebumps on my bare arms; I shivered, rubbing them. "But he's a player, so I dunno what his problem is. Ain't like he's in love with her or nothin'."

She let out a little laugh. "You ain't makin' him sound like much of a prize. Where was the attraction?"

 _A fucked-up, twisted part of me decided to punish Sylvia._

 _He's interesting, even if he's a hot mess— in the Chinese curse kind of way, 'may you live in interesting times', but it's enough to draw me to him._

 _There's good inside of him, as cliché as it sounds— I've seen it with Johnny, with Mom, even with me. He's just afraid of what might happen if he drops the mask_.

"We grew up together," I said, not able to condense that into an explanation she'd understand. "I know him better than most people."

 _I don't believe what he said, about not being the barrel of a gun to me. I know him better than that._

"Honey," she said, "you don't have to settle for the first guy who comes sniffin' around. You ain't that ugly, I promise." She tapped her red fingernails on the edge of the table, looking at me with calculating eyes; I felt painfully conscious of my unbrushed hair, the mascara smeared under my bottom lashes. "I grew up broke as a joke too— and if I'd married a man like that, that's exactly what I would've stayed. Don't feel too bad."

(When I recalled her later, at that very moment, I could picture the poor white trash girl she'd been with perfect clarity, barefoot and stubborn and oozing desperation like a wound oozes pus— the last genuine face she ever wore. Back then, at fifteen, all I'd wondered was how good she was in the sack, to keep the attention of whatever they called Socs in that neighborhood.)

"Should I tell her?" I asked, picking at my cuticles until I raised a bead of blood on my index finger. "I guess she deserves to know."

"Don't." She smirked at me as she tapped her cigarette over the ashtray, amused by my naiveté. "What is this, an after-school special? Patty Duke learns a valuable lesson about doin' the right thing? If you didn't get the guy, don't throw away your friend too."

I wasn't much of a liar by nature; Mom had always said that the truth would out, pointing a damning finger at the cross hanging above the sink and telling me that being dishonest would damn me to hell. But shit, I'd already reserved myself a place there, and for worse than this. What good would telling her do? Only to soothe my guilty conscience, and I'd hardly earned that, at this stage in the game.

"The banana cream pie sounds good," Rose said, like she'd suggested nothing extraordinary in the past few minutes. "But you'll have to advise me here. I'm not the expert."

(I didn't mention Curly to her, because that didn't matter, anymore. I'd tucked it into a corner of my mind where I kept other thoughts no longer of use, until the details grew faded and smeared and out-of-order, until the memory died altogether.)

* * *

I was doing dishes at the kitchen sink when Dallas came.

"Hey," he said, his movements jerky as he approached me— the word hung in the air, not immediately followed by any others. He looked nervous, as anathema as that was to him.

"Hey." I squirted more Palmolive onto the sponge and started to scrub the grease out of a plate. "Soda ain't home, if you're lookin' for him. He an' Steve an' Two-Bit went out on some triple date."

(Doing the dishes and letting him out tonight was a peace offering. I wasn't used to fighting with Soda— these tense silences between us, how he laughed at Darry's endless stories about fly fishing technique and fastidiously avoided asking a single question about what I'd gotten up to with our aunt. Too many feelings had twisted themselves up inside me, guilt and self-righteous anger and shame all forming a noxious soup, and the only way I could bring myself to apologize was this.)

"I was lookin' for you."

"I'm sorry, okay?" My voice took on an edge, though he didn't really deserve it. "I was three sheets to the wind— I had no idea what I was doin'."

He looked at me with wide, glassy eyes, and that was when I realized that he was drunk, or maybe something worse than drunk. "Your mama—"

"If you tell me one more time that I remind you of my mama, or how I had one hell of a mama, I'm gonna start wonderin' which one of us you're really into."

"She called you my sister," he said, like I hadn't spoken. "She was right here in the kitchen, makin' roast beef an' potatoes, and she told me to go get my sister for supper. Didn't even think twice about it."

He swirled his finger around in the sudsy dishwater, as though the motion soothed him somehow. "I figured it was pretty damn sweet, you know. When she said it. Like I was family an' shit to her."

"But?" I asked, my breath catching in my throat. He wasn't just telling a touching anecdote.

"But you ain't my sister," he said, and kissed me, bunching the back of my blouse up with one hand, pushing me up against the counter with the other. It felt like being on fire, burning from the inside out, but I wasn't afraid. If he wanted to hurt me, he would've done it a long time ago. I'd given him enough opportunities.

This time, though, I pulled away before he could. "I'm not desperate enough to be your girl on the side," I said, my first act of self-respect in a long, long while. "You have to break it off with Sylvia."

"I know," he said, biting down on the corner of his lip. "Hope you realize she's gonna claw my face off with them acrylic nails of hers. I'll have scars like Tim."

"Come over here after and I'll kiss it better."

Dally laughed— a harsh chuckle, but still a laugh— and splashed the front of my blouse with the dishwater; after a moment, I started to laugh too. "You're really somethin', babe."

(She'd probably take a baseball bat to his windshield, but this was as much goodness as I had in me— still, I made sure not to look at the cross. Somehow, I didn't think this was the kind of honesty Mom would've approved of.)


	9. Young and Restless

My sort-of prequel A House Divided gives a little background to the first and last scenes here, if anyone's really confused. Gene's muscle spasms are caused by tardive dyskinesia, a side effect of the thorazine he takes to treat psychosis.

... Also, I promise the next chapter is lighter than this. Thanks for putting up with me and my angst, guys— your support keeps me writing more (horrible angst).

* * *

"We're sellin' drugs together. Obviously."

In retrospect, it's not much testament to my intelligence that I didn't guess sooner. I'd just like to point out to the jury that I'd had greater concerns at the time.

"Okay, I ain't _that_ dumb," I said, sharp points of color rising in my cheeks. "I figured you were both dealin', I wasn't born yesterday. Just didn't realize y'all had combined assets."

Angela rolled her eyes. "Lord, what else do you think we been doin' together? Fucking?"

"... Yes," I said slowly, trying to keep my voice down in this quiet corner of the library. "Every single person we know thinks you've been fucking."

"Ugh." She grimaced like she'd just swallowed a lemon whole. "Trust me, he's all yours. It's just business for us now. Gettin' our customers in one place."

It struck me then how little she looked and acted like a child, even though she was only fourteen— her face was sharp and free from any baby fat, covered in enough cosmetics to make a prostitute blush, and she carried herself with a tunnel-visioned determination that would've been better suited to Tim. "The hell even brought you together?" I asked, still struggling to wrap my head around it. I couldn't imagine Dallas wanting more out of Angela than her body, much less a business partner.

"Wantin' to piss off Tim. Mostly." She looked up at me through her eyelashes, her expression as blank as the Sphinx's. "Your daddy used to deal, didn't he?"

"Yeah," I said, my mouth dry, a deluge of memories flashing through my mind. Muffled shouts all night, Dad walking crooked and rambling, Uncle Gene passing Mom cards of divorce lawyers and telling her that he'd never thought having mixed children was an ace idea. The one visit I'd ever made to Big Mac. "I was just a kid, though. Eight or somethin'. He gave it up after he got outta the slammer."

I didn't like talking shit about my daddy now that he was dead, judging the choices he'd made when he wasn't even here to defend himself. I knew the score.

She flipped her binder shut with a loud slap, not that she'd been paying much attention to its contents. "You feel like ditchin'? I'm so sick of this place."

Wouldn't be my first rodeo. I felt a newfound sense of apathy pooling in my veins, like a shot of heroin, making my thoughts all cloudy. So what. So what if I didn't go to school; the world would keep turning, with or without me. "We'll probably get busted," I said, propping my chin up on my fist. "You care about that?"

"Nah," she said, "no one home to answer the phone, anyway." She spun a pencil around between her fingers. "Do you?"

I could smell the last tendrils of August coming in through the cracked-open window, a hybrid between honeysuckle and warm grass and gasoline, and the urge to get out struck me so hard it physically hurt. "Nah," I said, standing up and grabbing my bag. "Let's bounce."

* * *

"You came prepared," I said, looking down at myself in Angela's bathing suit with faint distaste. I didn't like looking at my body much anymore— it felt foreign, disconnected from the brain and spinal cord it protected, while my mind watched what happened to it from afar— and her red bikini emphasized parts of me I wasn't drunk enough to want exposed.

"Figured you wouldn't say no," she said, squinting at the refractions of sunlight on the surface of East Tulsa's pool, then pushing the hair out of her face with heart-shaped sunglasses. Normally this place was packed at the height of summer, but in the middle of a work day, the only people here were as up to no good as us; I dangled my feet in the water, trying to avert my gaze from the couple getting busy near the shallow end.

At least there were no kids here. I closed my eyes, gritty heat on my palms as I reclined, and when I opened them again, a strange guy in gray swim trunks was sitting on the ledge with us.

" _Que hacés, Angela_?" he asked, as eager as a puppy with its tail wagging. He looked around Soda's age, maybe seventeen or eighteen, his ears sticking out because his wet hair was slicked to his skull. " _Pensé que no_ —"

" _Relájate_ ," she said fondly, before they both leaped into a rapid-fire conversation that my freshman Spanish 1 knowledge didn't come close to covering. I recognized some curses— _puta, mierda, maricón_ — but otherwise, I was stuck turning from head to head, trying to wrangle individual words into phrases.

"We're bein' rude, ain't we?" She put her small hand on my shoulder. "Jasmine, this is my _friend_ Miguel. Miguel, this is Jasmine. Principal said she's supposed to be keepin' me on the straight and narrow, but I think he oughta fire her, personally."

He laughed too loud for the joke. His eyes weren't fixed on me, though, but only on Angela, hypnotized by her. "You bring the—"

"I need to see the money first," she said, sing-songing it in a way that made a shiver run down my spine. "Don't take it personal, hon, it's just business."

"C'mon, Angel," he wheedled. "Don't you trust me?" He leaned closer to her, enough that I was sure she could feel the heat of his breath on her face.

"No." She smiled as she said it, sugar and spice and everything nice, but there was an current of malice running through the word. She wasn't fucking around.

Swearing under his breath, Miguel swung his legs out of the pool and strode over to the bench where he'd tossed his bag; Angela shrugged and followed him, leaving me with no choice but to get up too. "This is all I got." He brandished a crumpled handful of bills at us, pleadingly. "You're bleedin' me dry here. River Kings sell for half this price."

"Baby," she said, fluttering her long eyelashes at him, "you know it's worth more than that. At least fifty cents a pill. I ain't never done you dirty like them and called crushed aspirin coke."

She ran her hand down his arm, giving his bicep a hard squeeze— he couldn't stop staring at her breasts, threatening to spill out of her bikini top. "You want Dallas to hear you're goin' to a competitor?" I said. "Don't think he'd be real happy 'bout that."

"She's his girl." Angela got a baggie of yellow pills out of her own backpack and dangled it above her head, teasingly; though it was well within his reach, he didn't snatch it from her. "She'll tell him everything."

"You're too damn pretty for your own good," he sighed, but he got another fistful out all the same. "Too damn _pretty_. Dunno how Winston ever says no to you."

All the softness vanished from her face as he walked away. "Sucker," she hissed at me, low and dirty. Her sharp teeth shone white in her half-open mouth. "They're all so fucking dumb, God. Put your tits in front of them and game over— it's like takin' candy from a baby."

Still no kids, the one excuse for a lifeguard was still sleeping off last night's hangover, and a fight had already broken out with a pool noodle by the deep end. Well, at least we probably weren't getting arrested for this.

"I didn't know you could speak Spanish," I said, out of all things. Grasping at some halfway normal topic of conversation.

"My daddy was Chicano, I picked it up," she said, tucking away the wad of dollars. "Drives Tim fuckin' nuts, me and Curly are so much better than him."

"How come your name's Shepard?"

"My mama figured it'd make people think we're white. Don't even get my uncles started on it."

"You don't look white." Neither did Tim or Curly, in all honesty, but at least their blue eyes helped the charade. Angela didn't even have that much.

"You don't, neither." She smirked. "Either your mom had a couple of you with the milkman, or there was somethin' in the gene pool."

Unsure if she was expecting me to deny that I was the only one of my father's kids who'd never gotten him stopped by the cops— they couldn't believe an Indian hadn't grabbed those towheads off the street— I just shrugged. I was proud of it; recognizing the parts of his face on mine, the unmanageable dark hair and skin that could never burn. "The boys all took after our mama, I guess, not our half-Native daddy."

"Here," she said, shoving a single into my sweaty palm. "Brown girls gotta stick together, right? I couldn't have made that deal without you."

I shook my head slowly, a creeping sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. "I was just messin' around back there. Shit. I can't take your money."

"It's Ma's money, if you wanna get technical, since I'm sellin' her mother's little helper." She slapped another single down, before I could finish refusing the first one. "This ain't even enough to buy you a goddamn sweater set, so shut up an' take it already."

There's a version of this story that I'd prefer to tell, where I learned a valuable lesson from my daddy, threw the cash into the cloudy water, and went back to school in time for English class.

In this one, I waved the bills around in my clenched fist, testing their weight. Dirty money, blood money. I didn't feel disgust or revulsion, though, but more a perverse sense of pride, lurking dark inside me. Excitement, even, like this was how life was supposed to go, and I'd only been sleepwalking before.

* * *

I'd been dodging Sylvia because I was a coward— I could dole out the punishment, but not deal with the consequences. And when I finally mustered up the (liquid) courage to face her, downing a mini bottle of vodka in one go and dropping it on her lawn, I knew that I'd been so very right to try to dodge this fallout.

She was obviously drunk, with a bottle of her stepdaddy's whiskey in her hand, slumped against her mattress. If she'd been drinking alone much before, I hadn't known about it. "Syl," I started, unable to look away from the wreck. "Shit, I—"

That was when she slapped me across the face, hard enough to snap my head all the way back; I tasted copper where my teeth had scraped against my cheek, like I'd been sucking on a dirty penny. "Slut."

If she hadn't added that last part, I would've backed down, acknowledged that I deserved a slap and worse, but the word 'slut' lodged itself inside my brain and lit a dangerous fuse. "Takes one to know one, huh?"

She moved to smack me again— it was depressingly easy to dodge her, with how much the alcohol had slowed her reflexes. "I can't have one fuckin' thing." She slumped forward, her eyes glassy and unseeing. "Can't have one fuckin' _thing_ that you don't steal. That why you tried to stop Dally from gettin' back together with me, ain't it?"

"Ain't much of a relationship when y'all are screwing the rest of the hood, too," slithered out of my mean, mean mouth. "I didn't steal him, anyway. He came all on his own."

"Selfish." Her words came at me in a hail of bullets, too quick to dodge. "You're so selfish, God." She started to cry then, loud, wailing gasps into her ripped tights. "You could've had anyone at all, any other guy in the world, and you picked mine?"

I didn't care, watching her tears from some far-removed plane. She was my best friend, she'd held my hand at my parents' funeral and slept in my bed and shared my dolls growing up, and I did not fucking _care_. I felt a sense of numbness sweep over me, stilling my mind to a stop, and then there was nothing at all.

A couple weeks before the accident, I'd wanted to go to the winter sock hop, but Mom had said no, because I was already grounded for missing curfew. I'd thrown a big tantrum about it, too, told her I'd hated her and run off to cry big, fat tears into my pillow about how _unfair_ my mama was, and I'd kept that fight going until the night she died, thrown a thousand petty complaints in there for good measure.

Boy, did the universe really give me something to cry about. I looked back at that girl with an unspeakable disdain, contempt that transcended words, and something inside of me snapped.

"You _left_ me," I managed to snarl, my hand slashing through the air, when her sobs didn't slow. I wanted to bring it crashing down on her face. "You just _left_ me there, you—"

"What?" She looked at me like I was the one hammered out of my mind, her head lolling helplessly to the side.

"You don't remember?" Now I was on the offensive, the lion stalking the maiden, crouching closer to her. "You really don't?"

Yet another chance to talk about it. Spit it out. Reveal the ugly, melodramatic truth behind why I drank so much, why I didn't want any man who'd treat me well, why I was trembling with barely-suppressed rage right now, enough to make my teeth chatter—

And she wouldn't even remember it in the morning. She'd wake up in a puddle of her own vomit and drool and wonder why her palm stung, why there was a bottle in front of her, but she wouldn't remember.

I dug my nails into my forearms, hard enough to raise crescent welts, when she kept giving me the same blank stare. "Graham messed around with me."

"Who the fuck is Graham?"

I snatched the bottle from her hand. For a brief, ecstatic, terrible moment, I thought about breaking it over her skull, but that wouldn't make her understand my hurt. Nothing ever would.

"Get out of here." She whipped a pillow at me— not hard enough to do any damage, but it got the message across. "Fuck you, I don't care, just get _out_. He'll prob'ly give you the clap anyway."

"Why'd you do somethin' like that to her, huh?" Nate said when I stumbled back out, but it was too slurred to be threatening, all the vowels sounding like he was talking underwater. He was high, and I didn't care to figure out whether pills or grass or plain old booze had gotten him there; there wasn't a sober person in this whole goddamn house, and there probably wouldn't be until Sylvia's momma popped out her next kid. He dribbled a little down his collar, leaning so far back over the arm of their broken couch I was afraid he'd crash to the ground. "Man, if you was a guy, I'd pound you good. She don't deserve your bullshit."

I considered going back and letting Sylvia sob into my shirt, cradling her against me, letting things return to what they were before, but I was metamorphosing. Barricaded inside a hard chrysalis, one that nobody could touch anymore. "Go take a shower, Nate," I said, sliding my tone up past snooty and turning away from his disaster. "Then tell me how to live my life."

"You're a real bitch, you know that?" he hollered at me as I slammed the front door shut, hard enough for the reverberation to pulse through my entire body. "A real _bitch_."

The heat threatened to drown me, settling in the bottom of my lungs like cement. I smacked the wall of their house, slamming the side of my wrist against it; the skin peeled back to reveal a few smears of blood, the shadow of a bruise beginning to form around the bone bump, but I still hadn't done it hard enough to break.

I really didn't like myself so much anymore.

* * *

"School called," Ponyboy said when I got home, cracking open a beer from the fridge and sipping it with a casualness that alarmed me. He'd just turned fourteen back in July. Fourteen-year-olds weren't supposed to drink, right? "You got detention tomorrow. Something 'bout not showin' up all day."

"Thanks for intercepting," I said, slouching into a chair I'd pulled out from the kitchen table. I didn't even want to think about Darry's reaction to this little episode, though the hypocrite had snuck out plenty with his football buddies, back in the day. Guess all that stopped mattering once he became the parent.

"You never used to cut school."

"Yeah, well, people change." I drummed my fingers on the wood, anxiety going off in tiny sparks under my skin. "Get used to it. We can't all be skippin' into the tenth grade, wunderkind."

"Did Dally want you to?"

My eyes narrowed. "No. Why?"

"I can't believe you're datin' him now," he said, making a face, and not just from the bitterness of the beer. " _Lord_. He's got a rap sheet longer than the phone book and thinks haircuts are for Socs who wanna look like John Lennon."

 _Assault and battery. Possession. Possession, with intent to distribute. Petty larceny. Grand theft auto._ Yeah, I'd heard plenty about it before— any greaser in our hood with a record never shut up about it, and Dallas was no exception. I wished he'd wipe off that pained, condescending look he wore so well, the kind our social worker had on when she saw where 'those people' lived. Dad's rap sheet wasn't much cleaner. "How'd you even know we was a thing in the first place?"

"'Cause he showed up here a couple hours ago and told me not to tell Darry an' Soda." He paused for dramatic effect. "Can't imagine why."

"You don't get to make smartass comments when you're the kid brother," I made sure to inform him. "He's in the gang, goddammit. Y'all rather I hook up with one of them River King gentlemen?"

"He's dangerous," he said with a seriousness beyond his not-old-enough-to-shave years— God, if he didn't solidly freak me out sometimes when he dropped his philosopher-like insights. "You know he ain't… right in the head. C'mon, Jas. You wanna be half of Bonnie and Clyde?"

 _Today, I helped sell a bag of Valium, and I'm pretty sure that I'll be selling more._

 _My (former?) best friend just about broke my nose._

 _Everything's all mixed up now. Like there's the Gordian knot inside my head, impossible to unravel._

"Quit drinkin' that," I said instead of answering him. "Didn't you say it's gonna be a sad day when you have to get your courage from a can? You weren't wrong."

"You drink all the damn time," he said, but still slid the near-empty can over to me— I crushed it in my fist, letting a few amber drops cascade down the bruised skin. "Man, you and Soda get away with everything, then you think you can pat me on the head and send me to the kids' table."

"I'm an idiot, and Soda's lucky he ain't gotten arrested yet." I couldn't scold him with much more firmness, when I'd used the same exact argument against Soda. Merry bunch of hypocrites we were, our only moral principle not wanting each other to make the same mistakes. "Darry comes back and sees you ain't got your homework done, he's gonna ask questions we don't feel like answering, so don't kill your brain cells. That's assumin' you've sobered up by then."

" _Anderson's_ killin' me." He slammed his geometry binder down on the table. "You understand this junk about proofs at all?"

"Yeah, 'course," I said, jumping into the teacher mode I rarely got to use with my own student. "Look, first you gotta start from—"

I taught him mechanically, going through the motions of a concept I'd grasped more easily than my life should've dictated— cause and effect, if, then, why, spread out before me. But my mind hovered above my body, somewhere else, trapped inside the stench of chlorine and the thrill I'd felt tingle through my fingertips.

It'd been so simple, like stepping into a warm bath and letting my muscles relax. I didn't have to think of myself as different, altered somehow by entering into Angela Shepard's orbit, because it'd been inside of me the whole time. She'd sensed it.

After all, I was my daddy's daughter, wasn't I?

* * *

 _"I don't feel right, baby. You know?"_

 _I was sitting on my Uncle Gene's lap, in the lull of the hot afternoon, my head resting against his chest. He tried to stroke my hair, but I didn't like it much, his curled-up fingers trembling on top of my scalp and raking into it._

 _"You don't know what it's like in those loony bins." His leg bounced up and down and up and down and up and down. "Nothing's your own. Nothing at all. Not your body, and not your mind, either."_

 _"That don't make no sense," I said. I was eight. My daddy had left in the middle of the night and now he was in jail and he couldn't come back— not a lot made sense to me anymore. If I was any older, I might've called the whole situation Kafkaesque._

 _"They give me this pill, thorazine," he said, spitting out the word pill like it was a curse. "Makes me feel— I'm shakin' inside, I'm flyin' apart. They ripped deep into me and changed everything about me. I used to be special." His hand pulled on one of my curls, clumsily grasping. "Jesus fuckin' Christ used to talk to me. I'm his second-coming, but he didn't finish tellin' me how to redeem everyone before they took him away. It's like they're Pontius Pilate, they killed him all over again."_

 _He gestured towards his bouncing thigh like it was a mechanical addition, surgically attached to him against his will. "This ain't my leg anymore," he said. "I ain't got nothin' anymore."_


	10. Practical Ethics

You guys remember how I said this chapter would be 'lighter'? I lied. Buckle up for this one.

* * *

 _No. No, I don't wanna— I said—_

And once again I was trapped back there, his hand bearing down on my throat, his eyes gleaming electric; in the dim light of the smoking room, I hadn't realized just how hollow they were until he was watching my broken body. He did it for the same reason anyone did anything: he liked it.

I woke up in a puddle, some disgusting mix of snot and spit and tears, clutching at my neck in the dark; I could still feel the pressure, the primal fear crawling up my windpipe, and it was enough to make me—

run to the bathroom, angry bile rising into my mouth. Retching acid, I barely made it to the toilet on time, collapsing with my cheek pressed to the bowl after I was done. Cold sweat pooled on my forehead as I shook, my mouth filthy, the tile digging into my knees, and God, did I want to die.

"Jas?"

Fuck.

"Jas, you okay?" Soda asked in his best attempt at a whisper, rapping on the door. "You got the stomach bug or somethin'?"

"I'm fine," I forced myself to say, hoarse from vomiting. I pushed up on the seat, reeling from the remaining nausea, and tried to take deep breaths as I rinsed my mouth out. One, two, three. One, two, three.

"No, you ain't." Despite our feud, he still sounded so concerned, like my sickness now wiped all that out. "Fine people don't spew chunks in the middle of the night, last I checked."

I yanked the door open to find him standing there in his faded pajamas, and I stumbled right into him, dizzy and exhausted. "Hey, hey, easy there," he said, like he was talking to a spooked horse, and led me over to the couch. "What happened?"

"Just a nightmare," I muttered, rubbing the cushion's velvet the wrong way. "It ain't a big deal."

"'Bout Mom an' Dad? Like Pony has?"

"Yeah," I lied, because the worst part wasn't him touching me between the legs, his fingers insistent and probing and painful. It wasn't him taking my clothes off, or shoving his dick inside me, or putting his hand around my throat. It was how I'd been stupid enough and drunk enough and reckless enough to get involved with him in the first place. And if I told Soda, it'd become my fault faster than he could've strangled me and left my corpse there. "'Bout the... ICU."

(The truth: I didn't remember the ICU much, the whole place fading into a dreamy mess of fluorescent lights and constant beeps and blood on scrubs whenever I tried. I barely remembered Uncle Gene and Darry's brawl over, of all things, Soda's weed habits, or the funeral, or the social worker telling me that she'd be keeping a close eye on 'this situation'. It was like everything was thrown into sharp relief from the moment I was on my back, his hands all over me, and I knew that I had reached the point of no return.)

"I feel all mixed up, Jas." He bent over and shoved his elbows into his kneecaps. "Looks like my baby sister ain't so much my baby sister anymore."

"If this is gonna lead into some anecdote 'bout the day Mom brought me home from the hospital—"

"Who do you think I am, Pony?" he snorted. "I was a little kid, shit, I was just pissed someone else was gonna be suckin' on Mama's boobies." He sighed, in the overdramatic manner that characterized the Soda sigh. It was meant to be noticed. "This is gonna lead into some anecdote 'bout me beatin' up bullies for you on the playground."

"Like hell you ever did," I couldn't help but snort in return. "Me, Brenda, Walking Wanda— that's the one that's gonna go down in the history books."

He ran his fingers through his hair, making it even messier than usual, and hugged me to him with one arm; I was too tired to protest. "You and Curly an item now? The right answer's no, by the way. I don't need to see more Shepards than I absolutely have to."

"Trust me, it _is_ no." Curly and I had passed each other in the hall a few days ago and averted our eyes as fast as possible, after a second of awkward staring. I expected we might be able to have an actual conversation in a couple years, if everything else went well. "It was a mistake. Lord. I ain't fixin' to walk down the aisle with him."

"He didn't... make you do nothin', did he?" I couldn't see him well in the darkness, the living room only illuminated by a stream of moonlight through the window, but by the tension in his arms, I knew he'd clenched his fists. "Nothin' you didn't want to do?"

"He ain't like that." Curly was an idiot, your average not-too-bright downtown hood, but if I'd told him to stop, he would've— he had that much decency. "I'm sorry," I then said for the first time in days, and I meant it. "I shouldn't have put you in the hot seat with Darry. Made you cover for me."

"Eh, I've been in worse, and you came back before I had to nark," he said, and let it slide with the most casual of shrugs. That was Soda for you, his temper flaring up and fading faster than a firework. "Try to forget about it, okay?" He started to propel me towards my room again, supporting my rubbery limbs as I walked. "Or else we're gonna have to take you to Pony's brain doctor and get you a script for football and readin' Dickens."

I missed my old comfort, nips from Daddy's collections of beer and whiskey and scotch— last time I attempted to go without my crutch at night, see if anything had changed inside my fucked-up head. Sleep haunted me otherwise, making me fantasize about the calm flowing through my veins, down through the wrists into the soles of my feet, the sweet rollercoaster dizziness when I closed my eyes and tilted my head back... even if it usually ended in me cranking the sink up to hide the sound of me worshipping the porcelain throne.

It'd take brain surgery to make me forget. A lobotomy, like they did to Rosemary Kennedy, separating the two hemispheres with an icepick. No ordinary shrink was up to the challenge.

* * *

Dallas and I didn't really talk much; it wasn't that kind of relationship. So when he flipped me off of him and took his hand out from feeling up my tits, it came as a bit of a shock.

"Angel says you want in on the business."

"Not sure if I got the right CV for it." I pulled my shirt back down and readjusted my Wonder bra. "Since when am I a conversation topic for you two?"

"Did you think she decided to take you all on her own?" He laughed, the sound tinged with disdain. "I told her to feel you out, see if you liked it. She says you 'bout made Miguel piss himself when you told him you was my girl." He searched for a reaction in every curve of my face; he didn't get one. "Guess you come by it honest."

"So I can't drink at parties or hang around Buck's place, but I can sell drugs?" I said coolly, holding my cards close to the chest he'd just been all over. How very manipulative. How very _Dallas_. And here I thought he might be starting to go soft.

"Look, I wouldn't get you involved in nothin' bad," he said, hooking an arm around my waist and pulling me towards him on the bed, going in for the kill. "Shit, this ain't some cartel. We're just messin' with Tim's head a little, you know, makin' pocket change. All our customers are dumb motherfuckers who rubbed the Kings the wrong way. It ain't serious."

 _Not like your daddy's operation._

"Yeah, I figured you ain't no Al Capone." I curled up against him, resting my head on his side. He smelled like my father did, stale whiskey and Old Spice, and it comforted me in spite of myself. "Dunno why you gotta start all this shit with Tim. Ever wondered how good you'd breathe if your ribs weren't always busted?"

"'Cause he's _Shepard_ ," he said like that explained everything— and in his mind, it probably did. "Fucker keeps beggin' me to join his little outfit— as his second-in-command. Satan's gonna be makin' snowmen in hell before he sees _that_ day."

"You might like it," I taunted, wishing I had a smoke. "He's your friend, ain't he? And if his outfit's little, Darry's is microscopic."

"He ain't my fuckin' _friend_ ," he was quick to say, and crinkled his nose at the thought. "I just need to get my kicks from more than poundin' Bobby Sheldon's face into the dirt sometimes, so I string him along." He started kissing down my neck, sending a shiver through me. "Fightin' Socs— God, it gets old. Like runnin' on a hamster wheel. Dealing's where it's at, even in this hick city."

I knew what he was too embarrassed and stubborn to say out loud— that we were his family, the only one he'd ever have, and that he'd be adrift without us to anchor his worse impulses. But I had enough tact not to push for the truth. "All right, I gotta get my kicks somehow too," I said, feeling like an orange peel that had been taped back together again. Hollow inside. "Just promise you won't make me find out how a girls' reformatory works."

He looked sternly down at me, his hands pressing into my hips. "You better know not to talk to no cops. Don't make me regret this."

All I did was raise my eyebrows at him, trying to put as much contempt as I could into the gesture. Wasn't I a Curtis, same as Ponyboy and Soda and Darry? "You gonna keep talkin', or are you gonna kiss me again? I liked that better than the interrogation."

"I didn't even have to corrupt you none," he said with a disbelieving smirk, then fell back onto me, our mouths colliding again. "Can't believe outta all four Curtises, the girl's the dirtiest one. Goddamn. Never saw that comin'."

"Jasmine, how many times do I gotta tell you not to leave your cardigans on the back of the chair—"

I hadn't even heard him approach until he was throwing the door open. Dallas immediately rolled off me, but it was much too late; he'd witnessed everything in Technicolor.

Darry blinked once, and dropped my cardigan on the floor. Then he blinked again. He did quite a lot of blinking.

"What the _hell_?"

* * *

Though he'd prefer a more flattering account, Dallas got his ass kicked straight out the door, because Darry was almost half a foot taller than him and roofed houses for a living. In defense of his manhood, he didn't really fight the ass-kicking that hard— I'm pretty sure he'd figured out that if he wanted to date me, he needed to pay his dues first. It was about as romantic as he got.

After that charming display of violence, Darry stormed back in and crossed his arms over his chest, making his biceps bulge out. "I don't like this, Jasmine."

"Yeah, thanks, I think I got the picture." I slouched against my headboard. " _God_ , you're such a caveman. What was all that for?"

"He's too old for you."

I started to laugh, but I choked on it when I saw that he was dead serious. "C'mon, you're gonna have to come up with a better excuse than that."

"You're fifteen—"

"Sixteen in February, that ain't so far away—"

"And he's almost eighteen," he concluded grimly. "Old enough to go to real prison, in other words."

"Lord, Darry, you need to get a date, if you're this involved in my love life. The kind with a happy ending."

"Funny, the broads usually ain't so eager to drop their panties after they find out I got three smart-mouth kids at home." He tilted my chin up, in a way I hated, and forced me to look him in the eye. "You get involved in any of his shit, I'm gonna skin you like a bobcat, little girl."

"You can't just stop us from bein' together. I'll sneak out the window."

He smacked the side of my leg, hard. "Then I'll lick the sense back into you, and you see if I don't. It'd do that mouth some good, at least."

Yeah, sure, that'd be the day. Maybe he'd throw making me eat a bar of Ivory into the mix, while he was at it. Still, I made the worst face I could at him and rubbed the sore spot a lot more than it deserved, until he started scuffing my floorboards with the toe of his work boot— a nervous habit he'd never managed to outgrow.

"You don't look nothin' like her, but you're startin' to remind me more and more of Mom."

"How?" I asked, even though the answer was already etched into the grooves of my brain. I wanted to hear him say it.

He worried his bottom lip between his teeth, biting down. "You're too young to remember—"

"I'm old enough to remember doin' all y'all's laundry and cooking, 'cause Mom was too tired to move after workin' at the diner," I cut off sharply. "I was _eight_ , Darry, not two."

"And I was thirteen." He collapsed onto my desk chair, almost tipping it over. "No one loved Dad more than me."

"But?"

"But she should've left him, and you know it." He rested one hand against his forehead. "We could've all died, God. Mom came home from the supermarket one day and found all the damn furniture slashed up— it could've been our throats. You think Dally ain't got enemies like that? He's made a hell of a lot of them— he kind of just makes them by existing."

"Dad's too dead to defend himself, so leave him alone." I gripped the bedspread, feeling the world tilt off its axis and grasping for purchase. Darry never criticized Dad. He never talked about this— none of us did. "You hid his product, didn't you? Doubt he would've gotten as far as he did without your help."

"I'm sick an' tired of you givin' me shit, Jasmine," he said with enough harshness to make me flinch. There was genuinely threatening Darry, some mixture of Dad's temper and Mom's cutting tongue. I hadn't missed him. "You ain't grown yet, believe it or not, and when I tell you that you ain't gonna act like some delinquent—"

"Like you did?"

He was no doubt tempted to backhand me, and might have if I wasn't headed to Rose's soon after; I didn't care. Maybe I would've even welcomed it, the opportunity to feel something. "You don't want to follow the rules around here, you can get out," he said quietly, hovering near me like a snake about to strike. "Rose is waitin' with open arms. I'll even help you pack."

 _You'd love that, wouldn't you— one less mouth to feed? One less reminder of your ruined life?_

I shook my head.

"No, no, I get it now. She's loaded, she wants to be your best friend, the state's behind it a hundred percent. Guess that's why you can't be bothered to listen to a word I say anymore, 'cause it don't matter for you, does it? You got your escape hatch."

I couldn't just leave Pony here to face Darry every day, alone. As bad as it was between them, something even more terrible would build up and erupt without me around to absorb the brunt of his anger. So I bit back every retort itching its way out of my mouth and shook my head again. Not trusting myself to speak.

"Then you don't tell Rose none of this," he said, his voice sharper than the edge of a knife. "Not one fucking word. I think you know by now why social services is watchin' every move we make. And if you got two brain cells to rub together, you'll stay away from Dallas like he's nuclear waste."

* * *

"If you came to live with me, I'd never stop dressin' you up," Rose said, rotating my shoulders in front of the mirror. A sausage stuffed into too-tight casing stared back. "You don't seem much like a knee socks and saddle shoes kind of girl."

I weighed the pros and cons of being my aunt's personal Barbie and getting clothes that hadn't a. already been worn by my mother for the past ten years or b. come from a consignment shop, now that Sylvia and I were on the outs. Sadly, this took more than a couple seconds.

Her new apartment was sure nice, for someone who'd rolled into town on such short notice, and a damn sight neater than our ramshackle house that seven boys trashed every day. She'd set up the beginnings of a bedroom for me, even, and goddamn, if that didn't fill me with a sense of creeping dread— mostly because she'd decorated the place in a shade of pastel pink I'd found appealing when I was ten, complete with lace curtains and spotless white furniture. She'd also taken the liberty of stocking my closet.

"God knows you ain't been doin' so hot in the wardrobe department, baby," she continued, attacking my face with a powder puff— I fought the urge to sneeze. "Livin' with all those boys, of course no one's been payin' attention to how to accentuate your figure."

(My brothers' thoughts on my figure were indeed, fortunately, minimal. Two out of three would've preferred if I'd never grown one at all, and the third was due for a booster on his cooties vaccine.)

"It don't fit right," I said, wincing at the way I'd just managed to squeeze myself inside the size four— _perfect_ size four, as she'd insisted— dress. To be quite honest, even my hipbones had protested at being shoved into a perfect size four dress. I couldn't breathe. "I mean, I appreciate it an' all, but—"

Rose traced her finger down the side of my cheek. My _bloated_ cheek, a combination of alcoholic water retention and stubborn baby fat, and I could tell right then where her mind had gone. "Oh, honey," she said, declaring me a maternal disappointment with the way she sighed the end of the sentence. "I know just the thing."

She vanished into the hallway and returned just as fast, her fist tightly clenched around something. "Here." She pressed a bottle into my palm, unlabeled, unmarked. "Just don't tell Darry I gave it to you, for the love of God."

"What is it?"

"Diet pills." She smiled at me, in a way that didn't reach her eyes, only stretching her lips out. "Not that I'm sayin' you _need_ them, mind, but just in case... it's never too early to start watchin' your weight."

A hot flush of shame rolled over me, as I zeroed in on all of my physical imperfections— the zit beginning to form on my chin, the slight gap between my front teeth, my decidedly _not_ Indian cheekbones. My mama might've cussed her way through combing my hair, but she'd never talked to me like that. Like I was a sculpture that hadn't had enough carved away yet. "I think it'd be easier for you to get a dress that fits me than try to make me fit the dress."

Her smile turned brittle. "Don't be silly," she chided. "You have such pretty bone structure— there's no reason why you shouldn't fit into _this_ one. I don't want to have to return such a gorgeous gift because of a few extra pounds."

I could picture it— grabbing the bottle, pulling my arm back, and throwing it right at the wall opposite, the aerodynamics perfect, the way my daddy had taught me to throw a softball. Maybe it'd even scratch up the pretty pink paper, if I was lucky. But then I took it, smiled back at her from behind my eyelashes, and did nothing so unladylike.

Thanks to listening to Brenda talk for more than ten seconds, I knew exactly what was inside these pills. And I could think of a better use for them than lying around on the shag carpet.


	11. Mess Around

Just wanted to thank everyone for being so amazing and supportive :) And now to thank you some more, here's the next installment of the Curtis family soap opera :)

* * *

"Be quiet."

"You said there ain't nobody home," I whisper-hissed at Angela, my hands on my hips as we slipped through the back door. I wasn't sure which member of the Shepard clan I wanted to bump into the least, but none of them were an attractive option— especially considering what we were here for.

"Ma lyin' in bed with a hangover don't count as somebody," came her infinitely wise response. "So long as you don't wake her up, so keep it zipped."

I should've felt a prickling of conscience about robbing Angela's mother blind. Maybe about how I was spending more time out of school than in it, lately. But my biggest issue then was how I'd stocked our operation's slim coffers with enough uppers to keep us in business for a good long while, thanks to Rose's conviction that my extra five pounds required urgent treatment, and I still had to sneak around... almost empty houses to fill them up further.

"We're gettin' out of here in a minute— _Jesus_ ," she added with a hard nudge to my ribs. "I just wanna sweeten the pot for Eddie."

"He's a Brumly. He wouldn't notice if you sold him Tylenol 'stead of heroin."

"Then go back to school, if you're so scared of my drunk mama." She didn't even look at me as she said it, already making her way over to the bathroom. "Shit, you're such a drag sometimes. You prob'ly wish we was really doin' algebra there."

I was so sick of this girl my kid brother's age talking down to me, manipulating me like I was a puppet in her and Dally's little revenge plot— like I was lucky she'd chosen to pay me any attention at all, a privilege that could be fast revoked. And maybe I would've marched myself right back for second period out of sheer spite, if—

"Lil' girl, last time I checked, your ass was supposed to be in school on weekdays."

— hadn't happened.

"Tiiiim," Angela started to whine, ducking behind me as a human shield. "We was just—"

"There was a gas leak," I said, feeling a stab of pity at her deer-in-the-headlights expression. "We got sent home."

He looked at me with more disdain than it's possible to describe; I wilted right beneath that look. Worth a shot. "How fuckin' stupid do you think I am, exactly? Trust me, I know playin' hooky when I see it." He took a menacing step forward. "If you two was Ponyboy and Curly, I'd knock your empty skulls together, swear to God."

"You ain't my boss!" She clutched her schoolbag closer to her side, spitting venom at him with her eyes. "You don't even live here half the time, you can't tell me what to do like you own this place."

"Do I have to walk you down to Will Rogers and chain you to a desk every morning?" he demanded, his Adam's apple threatening to pulse straight out of his neck. "Why can't you just act like a normal girl and do what I fucking tell you for once?"

"Thought you didn't want me to be a girl." She stomped her foot at him— I would've sooner aggravated a full-grown grizzly, but I supposed he wasn't as terrifying when he was _your_ brother. "You never used to shut up 'bout how it's a shame I didn't come out a boy, 'cause I'm tougher than Curly."

"Yeah, well, shame or not, you didn't," he said. "And if you keep pretendin'—"

"The hell's the holdup, Timmy?"

A tall man— dark, shifty-eyed— emerged from the bathroom, shoving what were undeniably bottles of Valium into a bag. He looked a lot like Tim on the unscarred side, except for the teardrop tattoo on his left cheekbone, but he carried himself with the easy grace of someone who'd cracked plenty of skulls open with a baseball bat. "What's Angelita gonna do with school?" he said, and came over to wrap an arm around her waist; she pressed herself into his side and gave Tim a smug smirk. "She's pretty and she cooks good; we'll just hook her up with Miguel and that'll be the end of it. She'll make any man a fine wife."

"This is my uncle Luis," Tim told me with a sullen jerk of his mouth, like that explained anything. "And he don't seem to get that when _Angelita_ ain't in school, she's out causin' trouble."

"Doin' what, showin' her little friend her Barbies?" He pulled her even closer to him. "You're more paranoid than Carlos was, Timmy, goddamn. Get your ass outside already an' leave her alone."

An ugly, splotchy blush spread across Tim's face, a humiliated one. "I ain't got time to babysit you, Angela," he hissed as a parting shot, slinking away. "I really don't. Whatever shit you're gettin' yourself into now, you're on your own."

"Be a good girl an' go back to school, or at least stay outta the house from now on," Luis said, giving Angela a pat on the head like he would to a Golden Retriever. "'Else I'm gonna have to listen to your brother bitchin' at me all day, and that's worse than listenin' to your mama."

Angela flounced out, probably to go yell at Tim some more, but Luis caught me by the arm before I could follow her. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

His breath lapped hot against the shell of my ear, crashing down on me like a wave. "Jasmine," I said, all of my smart-mouthed comments falling out of my brain. "Jasmine Curtis."

"You look just like Darrel," he said with a breathy laugh, "you didn't have to tell me. He's dead now, ain't he? Got in a wreck with your mama?"

"Last January, yeah."

He pulled a bottle out of the sack and handed it to me; blindly, as though I was in a dream, I shoved it inside my skirt pocket. "Your daddy was a drunk and an Injun," he said, his hand snaking down to squeeze my ass. "That got him into a lot of trouble. Hope you learn to tell better lies than 'there was a gas leak' fast, for your sake."

* * *

I'd seen Sylvia hold court with a lot of girls over the years, banishing them and allowing them back into the inner circle at her leisure, but I'd always been watching with detachment— always her right-hand woman. So I'd missed the inevitable conclusion of rejecting her— becoming the next pariah.

"You can't sit here anymore, Jasmine," she said, tossing her hair imperiously from her place at the head of the lunch table. I was beginning to regret coming back to take my Spanish test and not doing shots with the Brumly guy, like Angela was right now. I'd wanted some normality, some girl talk to distract me from Luis's parting words ( _he knew my father, he recognized my father's face on mine, he worked with my father_), but that was looking like a lost cause. "I don't think you can be trusted not to steal someone else's steady."

I narrowed my eyes, searching for a sympathetic face and finding none— not that I really deserved or expected sympathy. They were Sylvia's friends, not mine, when it came down to it. "Don't need another, now that I already got one, do I?"

"You can't _sit_ here, Jasmine." Sylvia slammed her tray down, raising her voice enough for the entire cafeteria to hear her. "Does anyone have a problem with that?"

They, in fact, did not. Linda took a delicate bite of her salad and tried to avoid looking up at me. Pam picked at a stray thread sticking out of her skirt. Barb was suddenly very preoccupied with adjusting her headband.

"Maybe you can go sit with Curly," she continued, pointing to where he was stabbing a penknife between his fingers to impress his equally unstable friends. She smiled then, her lips unfurling like a flower. "Give him some more company."

It took me about 0.5 seconds to realize that Curly had told half the school all about how he'd managed to get some tail.

It took me another 0.5 seconds to realize that my reputation had already been in the toilet, anyway, so what did it matter?

(Incidentally, the toilet was also where I spent the rest of lunch period.)

* * *

Khrushchev and LBJ had _nothing_ on me and Darry, when it came to waging a cold war. And to think family dinner used to be fun, back in the day.

"Do I get to eat any of the food I put on the table?"

"Sorry, Darry," I said sweetly, ladling an extra serving of potatoes onto Two-Bit's plate. "But I only cook for people who want me around, you see, that's the thing. Why don't you turn on the oven and practice what it's gonna be like when I'm gone?"

He didn't explode, not yet— instead, he gave me a matching serene expression and turned to Pony. "Well, looks like you two won't have to fight over who gets shotgun in the morning anymore," he said. "'Cause I don't drive mouthy little brats to school."

"... I feel like I'm missin' something," Two-Bit said, in what constituted the understatement of the century. "Anyone wanna fill me in—"

"If we ain't kowtowin' to him, Darry feels like his sacrifice just ain't bein' appreciated enough, so he's throwin' me out," I said. "Can't wait to make Miss Edwards's wettest dream come true and tell her he's finally sick of runnin' this daycare service."

There was a cord of muscle twitching in his jaw as he stared me down. I'd seen that muscle quite a bit, lately, and it no longer intimidated me. "You wanna live here so bad, you can pretend to respect me for one damn minute, or there's gonna be hell to pay. I've heard enough of your lip to last me a lifetime."

"I failed my math test," Pony blurted out. I had to admire his kamikaze effort to save me, but Darry's gaze didn't even get a chance to flicker in his direction before Soda piped in.

"You said _what_ to her?" For a second, I really thought Soda was going to reach across the the table and slug him. "You told her to get out? Are you fucking serious?"

Darry swiveled around to Soda now. "Don't _you_ start. You're always on me, sayin' how you're a grown-ass man and I can't treat you like one of the kids, and then all you ever do is join 'em in gangin' up on me. I guess you think it's okay that she's hookin' up with Dally? You know how he's makin' the money in his pocket, and it ain't with that rodeo gig of his."

"This is worse than dinner with my old stepdaddy after a few whiskey sours," Two-Bit muttered. No one paid much attention.

"What?" The last time I'd seen Soda look this confused, Mom had been trying to get pre-algebra through his head. "First Curly, now _Dally_? But he's practically our _brother_."

"You been gettin' it on with Curly too?" Darry demanded— great, this really was shaping up to be the biggest family shitshow since we found out Dad was selling crank. Pony and Two-Bit both looked like they'd rather be having root canals with no anesthetic right now. "And then you wonder why I told her to go to Rose's— because she's out of control, that's why," he directed back at Soda. "Maybe she'll be able to handle her better."

"I didn't even do nothin'!" I said in my own defense, though it was a pretty bad lie. Man, if he was this pissed without knowing half of what I'd really been up to... "So I got a boyfriend you don't like, even though he's supposed to be a _brother_ to y'all—"

"Please," he snorted, "you think I'm blind and deaf? I been lettin' shit go 'cause the accident was hard on everyone, but I should've brought the hammer down on you from the start. You sneak out of here at night dressed like you're gonna go walk Sunset Boulevard, I can smell the nicotine on you from here, you been pickin' the worst kinds of hoods to date—"

"So after I'm out, where are you gonna send Pony and Soda when they start gettin' on your nerves, a boys' home?" I smiled, deep and ugly, going in for the kill. "Dad was right— you're _uppity_. You wish you could dump us on the side of the road, so you can get your college degree and pretend you never came from all this trash."

Darry scoffed loudly, twisting his napkin in his massive hands. "If Dad could see _you_ right now, he'd die all over again— of shame. He didn't raise you to act like some two-dollar whore."

The room settled into an eerie silence, with us blinking at each other. It only broke when I threw my plate on the ground, letting it shatter into a dozen messy shards that shot across the kitchen floor.

"Pick it up," he said, all of his parental authority hanging in the balance. He was pleading with me, begging me. "Jasmine, _pick up the goddamn_ —"

"Go to hell," I said, and walked right out.

"He's just worried about you," Two-Bit said, joining me on the porch a moment later. I could hear the three of them yelling back inside— Ponyboy trying to defend me, Darry trying to defend himself, Soda trying to defend what was left of our fractured family. "Shit, I'm the same way with Grace— I don't let her ten feet out the door 'less I know exactly where she's goin'."

"Your sister's twelve." I dug my nails into the soft wood beneath me, trying to steady myself. _A whore. A two-dollar whore._ "And Darry's not my fucking father."

I liked the way _fucking_ rolled off my tongue, reverberating on the hot night air. The hardness stiffened my spine, and something inside of me snapped like a broken guitar string.

"You're pretty messed up," Two-Bit said, his voice filled with prissy, big-brotherly disdain— a note I was used to hearing from all of them. "Jas, shit, he's just— where are you goin'?"

I'd already risen to my feet, wiping the dirt and dry leaves off my ass, and started walking. "I'm gettin' out," I called, drunk off the simple, stupid joy of defiance, the same way I'd felt after I shoplifted a compact when I was twelve. Like I could do anything in the world I wanted, Big Brother asleep at his desk. "Don't wanna follow his rules, so I'm gettin' out."

He didn't follow me.

* * *

I wandered over to Buck's as the sky had just begun to darken above me, filling the streets with shadows. I wasn't afraid anymore, hadn't been afraid all of this long, hazy summer— roaming around drunk at five in the morning, tiptoeing over cracks in the sidewalk, lazily ducking behind buildings when I saw a deal going on or a gang of Socs beating the shit out of some homeless guy. Untouchable.

The worst had already happened to me, and I was still alive. Anything beyond that was background noise.

Dally's room looked like a cross between Soda's and a drug den— dirty clothes flung all over, water stains spread across the ceiling, needles and half-smoked joints littering the top of his drawer. I knew he'd be lying on his sagging mattress, taking the edge off. I'd counted on it. "What are you doin' here?" he asked in a low, teasing voice, along with a mouthful of smoke. "Thought Darry gets y'all together for family dinner, like on _Father Knows Best_."

"I want you to fuck me."

He dropped the cigarette; cussing, he smothered the flame before it could burn more than a tiny hole in his blanket. "You drunk?"

"No." I pulled off my cardigan and raised my chin, goosebumps beginning to prickle my upper arms; I was only wearing a camisole under it. Then, before I could think twice, I took off the camisole too, leaving myself in just a lacy brassiere I'd borrowed from Angela.

 _Make the memories go away. Please. Make the ghosts go away._

"C'mere, then," he said, his pale eyes dark with desire; when I approached the bed, he pulled me on top of him and reached up my skirt, shoving my panties down my thighs. "Thought you'd never ask."

We didn't talk much, after that.

* * *

"You didn't like that."

The tip of another cigarette made shadows play around his face; the sun had set fully by now, cloaking the room in darkness. I fumbled with my bra clasp. "Don't bullshit me," he said before I could protest, inflate his ego. "I've fucked a lot of girls. I know you faked it."

God, I was an idiot.

Dallas didn't love me. I wasn't even all that sure if he _liked_ me, beyond being a notch on his bedpost. And here I'd been thinking that fucking him would make angels fly out of my cunt and start playing their harps.

It'd still hurt, though he hadn't been rough, not like Graham's brutal grabs or Curly's clumsy elbows jabbing me. And when it hadn't, I'd felt the same bleak nothingness I'd felt for the past endless stretch of months. Maybe it'd been physically pleasurable at points, his stubble scraping against my face and his fingers between my legs and him talking dirty, saying I was hot and wet and tight and everything I should've wanted to hear, but I'd been somewhere else the entire time— staring up at the ceiling, robotically performing the motions.

"I'm _good_ at sex, dammit," he said, breaking me out of my reverie, and gave me a wolfish smirk. "You ever gotten head? That's about the only reason Sylvia kept comin' back to me."

He ducked between my legs, but I pushed him away before he could. "It ain't your fault," I said in a thin, reedy voice, wrapping my arms around myself. "It ain't... about you."

He turned away and silently lit me a cigarette. "What happened?" he asked, waiting for me to take a few shaky drags.

"Nothing," I said, gagging on all the smoke in this room. I'd never been real big on hotboxing.

He didn't push, shrugging me off, and then I opened my mouth. I still don't know why I told him; maybe because it'd been holed up inside me for months, fighting its way to the surface, maybe because he was the first to ask. Either way, the truth crawled up my throat, impossible to hide any longer. "A Soc raped me back in January, after Mom an' Dad died," I said, trying to sound tough and cool. Like it didn't bother me none, didn't permeate my every moment, didn't creep up on me when I least expected it. "At a party. Happy now?"

I'd never called it rape before. Messing around. I was drunk. He hurt me. A thousand objections swirled around my brain— _you led him on, you didn't fight, you wanted it, he knew you wanted it, you just have no self-respect_ — but I couldn't bring myself to walk the words back. Not when _rape_ felt the most truthful I'd been in a long, long time.

"Some fucked-up shit happens in prison." He took a draught so long on that cigarette, I was afraid his lungs would inflate to bursting with smoke. "When you're a kid. You just have to live with it."

"Dally—"

"Shut up," he said as rapidly as he'd confessed, grabbing me by the wrists. "Shut up."

He looked as lost as I was, his thousand-yard stare striking through me like an icepick to the skull. I thought about the boy he'd been, back in Bed-Stuy, running with gangs much too old for him and getting put in jail at ten and _living with it_ , and I felt the urge to vomit.

"I'll take care of you now, baby," he said, brushing a possessive kiss against the nape of my neck. "Don't worry. Them fucking Socs can't just do whatever they want to our women without payin' for it."

I started shaking, then, like my mechanical body was finally about to fly apart; he pulled me against him, and when I still didn't stop, he pressed a little yellow pill into my palm and told me to just dry-swallow. The painkiller put me into a twilight sleep, my head lolling on his bare chest, and I examined the cobwebs on the walls until they'd burned themselves into my retinas. I sank.


	12. House of the Rising Sun

As if this fic wasn't dark enough... child prostitution and references to child sexual abuse here. I've tried not to make anything overly graphic, but as always, reader discretion advised.

(I should probably just put one big disclaimer at the beginning: abandon hope, all ye who enter here.)

* * *

Dally pulled me into his lap and poured an amber stream of whiskey into my coffee cup, almost at the same time.

"This what passes for breakfast at Buck's place?"

"Starts your day off right." He sucked on the side of my neck, leaving purple marks I'd have to cover up with foundation later. It only took a few burning sips for me to arch into it.

I hadn't gone home last night. I didn't even have a duffel bag on me or a single dollar bill, and if I stayed out any longer Darry would have me _dragged_ home in the back of a cop car, but the ember of pointless defiance burning in my chest had yet to die out. Shit, Dally wasn't much older than me, and I was pretty sure he hadn't lived with his daddy for years unless it was court-ordered.

Dally. His face was as inscrutable as ever, in the light of day. He'd looked so broken apart last night, like he'd scraped out part of his soul for me—

I never did manage to fall asleep. Stuck in the cage of his arms, the Valium played tricks on me— the shadows on the walls becoming amorphous demons, fragments of nightmares twisting around my head, the details hazy but the fear as real as a knife to the stomach. I felt like I was floating above my body, everything crumbling as I tried to grasp for it. Eventually, I wormed away from him and slipped outside, chain-smoking on the porch until the sun came up and my heartbeat crawled back down.

I'd probably die of lung cancer before I was forty. I didn't mind the thought so much.

"Winston, get your ass over to the rodeo before I fire it," was Buck's polite declaration as he stormed downstairs and interrupted my reverie. He grabbed the bottle and took a swig, slamming it back on the table hard enough to shake the coffee cups. "I pay you to race ponies, not work for the Shepards. So go race the fucking ponies."

" _Your_ ass jealous of the shit that comes out your mouth?" was Dally's equally polite rejoinder as he stared him down; Buck looked away first. Dally might've been seventeen, while Buck was at some point in his twenties, but there was no mistaking who ran the show here. "I hook you up with pills, I pay you a damn sight more than fair market rent, and I gotta listen to your bitchin' too? I'll get to it when I get to it."

"I'm addin' an extra dollar to that _fair market rent_ for every day you cut work," Buck said. "So you better head on back there, 'less you feel like bunkin' with your daddy again."

Dallas lunged at him, and he would've no doubt made him real sorry for that little remark if Johnny hadn't grabbed at his shirt collar. He was so quiet, I damn near forgot he was there half the time, unless he drew attention to himself. "Dally, just let it go," Johnny said, pleading. "C'mon."

If it was anyone else, Dally would've wrenched himself free and gone for the kill, then saved a few punches for whoever had tried to hold him back. But Johnny was the gang's pet, and especially Dally's, so he listened to him. "You're lucky the kid and my girl are here," he said, stabbing a finger at each of us in turn, "an' I don't want them to see me knock the rest of your teeth out."

Buck made some unspeakably rude hand gestures and stalked off; Dallas swore a blue streak at his retreating back, grinding his teeth together, then sighed in capitulation and unscrewed the whiskey again. "I know Jas avoids them rodeos like the plague—" I'd seen Soda's accident, the bone jutting out of his leg, and I got dry heaves whenever I went near the place— "but you better come cheer me on, Johnnycake."

"I can't," Johnny said, looking like he was about to toss the few swigs of booze he'd swallowed. He could never really hold his liquor. "Sylvia an' I have a date after school."

Well, I'd never seen Dallas bent over with laughter before, but there was a first time for everything. "Oh, man," he started through heaving snorts, then needed to take a break to catch his breath. "If you wasn't a virgin—"

"I ain't!"

Dallas grinned and reached out to mess up his hair. " _Sure_ you ain't, kid. Trust me, it's written all over your face. Never gotten any tail, so you're jumpin' on the first gal to show a bit of interest."

There was something easy and affectionate about the way he teased him, like Soda taking the piss out of Pony for being related to Tulsa's biggest panty-dropper and still not finding a date to the eighth grade Valentine's dance. "Brother, what'd me an' Steve tell you?" Dallas continued. "A sneakin' little broad like that'll get you into no end of trouble."

"I'm know, I'm breakin' guy code, so take your swing," Johnny said miserably. "You ain't supposed to date your buddies' exes, glory, but she was so torn up yesterday—"

"And you're fixin' to 'comfort' her real good, huh?" I couldn't resist saying.

"Awh, shit," Dallas said, "I already broke the code datin' Jasmine— Superman sure beat that into my ass. Ain't pissed at you, promise. Just don't want you to get your heart shattered by that one after she's done with you, 'cause she's a fuckin' barricuda."

I should've defended my former best friend, but my tongue couldn't twist into the right shape, not after she'd rejected my attempts at making nice yesterday. "She's just tryna get back at Dally for gettin' with me," I said. I didn't want Johnny to get hurt either; I'd always harbored some affection for him, and I'd had a front-row seat to Sylvia fucking over her many ex-boyfriends. "Don't fall for it."

"Get a room, you two."

Dally cranked his middle finger up and pulled me into another kiss, as Angela strolled inside— Buck left his front door unlocked as a matter of course, so as not to discourage anyone with free beer. "We was havin' such a good morning before you showed up."

"I wanna take you out," Angela said to me, her eyeliner winged so much it looked like it could slit someone's throat. "C'mon, Jas, it'll be fun. Girl time."

Angela definitely wasn't my friend, not the way Sylvia and I had been friends— flipping through Cosmo on hot summer afternoons, stealing joints from her brother, giggling about how Stan Michaels had tried to ask me out and tripped over his own shoelaces. I didn't think she was the type to have or want friends; our relationship was business, and Dally's idea anyway. But here she was, asking me to go have _fun_ with her. I must've woken up in Wonderland.

"Sure," I said slowly. Wasn't like I had any of my stuff to go to school, even if I'd wanted to, and part of me was curious to see what the hell she'd come up with.

"Better get dressed first, though," she said with a smirk. I was wearing Dally's oversized t-shirt from last night, a pair of panties, and nothing else. No wonder Johnny couldn't look me in the face. "Maybe even brush your hair."

"Angela," Dallas said, a note of warning in his voice. "You better not take her nowhere too rough."

"Don't worry about it," she said. "I think Jasmine's rough enough to handle herself."

* * *

We were passing a bottle of vodka around with some guys, sprawled on the floor of the House of the Rising Sun— your average brothel on the East Side, featuring half-dressed women with clove cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, its stained mattresses shielded by thin, gauzy curtains. That was my first mistake, but by that point, I'd permanently suppressed my danger instincts. Any man whose hand wasn't wrapped around my throat right that second dug okay.

Besides, I couldn't shake Luis's words— _your daddy was a drunk and an Injun_. Maybe a sick part of me wanted to embrace them. Maybe I was only a quarter Injun, even if I looked full in some lights, but I sure as shit was a drunk.

"Angel," Joe started, pinning her waist to his side. He was handsome (later, I'd think in the Ted Bundy kind of way), blond, definitely a pimp— and he hadn't touched a drop, I noticed too late. "You better tell Luis he's really pissin' me off."

"Angel," I said as I took another gulp, the alcohol removing any trace of inhibition from my mind. I had sunlight coursing through my veins, fire in my blood. "You better tell your fuckin' uncle to quit feelin' up my ass, or I'm gonna break his fingers off at the joint."

Joe laughed. "I like this one," he told Angela, tightening his hold on her, "you should've brought her around sooner. Gonna tell Luis you said that, sweetheart," he directed at me. "He might just break your fingers first."

The other guy, Frank, kept looking me up and down— I blamed a combination of gold eyeshadow and a blouse that exposed most of my breasts, courtesy of Miss Shepard. He was tall and awkward, like he couldn't handle all the space he took up, and hung off Joe's every exhalation. "Luis don't listen to a word I say," Angela slurred as I batted Frank's wandering hands aside, drunkenness making her much more voluble than usual. "He just pats me on the head and tells me to run along. Not like my brothers, my brothers get to do everything."

"At least you got great tits," Joe said, making a grab for them; her shrill giggle pierced the air, and I wanted to be anywhere else but wilting in this humid shack, bored and dehydrated. "Can't you just ask why your spic uncles won't give me half my supply?"

"Joe," she started, straddling his lap and hiking up her skirt without shame; she didn't sound as controlled as she had around the other guys I'd seen her seduce. She was begging like a kid for a lollipop at the checkout counter. "You still got enough for me to—"

"Yeah, baby, 'course," he said in a syrupy voice. "But you gotta give me somethin' in return."

"I got ten bucks."

"That ain't gonna do it, Angel." Joe gave her Graham's smile, the one tattooed on the insides of my eyelids, and ran his thumb down her jaw. "You been here years— you know the score."

Angela smiled back and tilted her chin up, before starting to unbutton her blouse. Her fingers were trembling, ever-so-slightly, but her eyes were somewhere else. "I'll make it worth your while."

"That's a good girl," he said, pressing kisses to the nape of her neck like there was no one else in the room. "That's what I like to hear. I'll take care of you now."

I couldn't move or speak; I was neither living nor dead; I just watched him as he hauled her upstairs, frozen stiff.

Was it hauling?

God, she was fourteen, drunk, sick in the head. Someone should've stopped it. But that someone wasn't me.

"Why don't we find our own room, baby?" Frank said after they'd vanished, clumsily palming my breast. I felt like I'd just had ice water poured down the back of my shirt. "Get to know each other better?"

"Not in your wildest dreams."

"What, nothin'?" he pouted. "C'mon. Why not, huh?"

"I'm Dallas Winston's girl."

That phrase had protected me like a talisman more than once, and today was no exception. He recoiled from me as though struck; messing with anything that Dally had laid claim to meant signing your death warrant.

I was worried for Angela, swallowed up in the cavern of the upstairs bedrooms, and I didn't dare take another sip from the abandoned bottle, not when Frank was still staring at me with hungry eyes. Instead I sat on my hands with that worry, gnawing on my bottom lip until I tasted blood.

* * *

She led me out of there half an hour later, stinking of sex and cheap booze, her eyeliner smeared down her face. She still managed to carry herself with the poise of a queen.

I broke the silence once we stepped out onto the street, staring up at the gray drizzle that had begun to come down from the sky. "So you're a prostitute."

She grabbed a fistful of my hair and gave it a vicious tug, knocking me off balance. "You suck Dallas's cock for free, and if I can trust Curly, you've got somethin' real special goin' on with him too. Shut your fucking mouth."

I felt too nauseous, a cold dread settling in the marrow of my bones, to hit her back. "Who brought you here?" I took a hold of her arm; I was taller than her, stronger, but she still wrenched free in the space of a second, breathing hard. "Luis?" My stomach churned, and it wasn't from the whiskey. "Tim?"

"Don't be disgusting." She twisted her face into an ugly sneer. "Darry and Soda been sneakin' into your bed since you was little? You tryna tell me something?"

For possibly the first time in my life, I didn't rise to the bait. "You're _fourteen_. You've comin' here for _years_." I was almost yelling now, my voice getting higher and more shrill. "Who brought you?"

She didn't look at me, instead bending over to straighten her stockings. "One of my old stepdaddies."

I threw up. Right there on the sidewalk, mostly from the sheer amount of booze I'd gulped, but— thinking about her, eleven, twelve years old in that place, brought me down to my knees with a sharp stab of pain. "Don't be so melodramatic," she said, from what sounded like a great distance. "I wasn't exactly some innocent kid playin' with Barbies before then. And Liam didn't _make_ me do anything. Just thought it was a good way for me to earn pocket money."

"That's... rape." It was like I'd learned a new spelling word, copying it over and over again in my head until I got it down. What happened to me was rape. What happened to Dallas was rape. What happened to Angela was some kind of rape beyond all comprehension. "They hurt you, Angel, they shouldn't have—"

"You don't _know_ me," she spat. "You don't know one damn thing about me. So you can take that fake pity and shove it up your ass." She raised her chin up again, but I could still see the tears pooling in her eyes before she blinked them back, clearly distinguishable from the rain coming down. "'I get everything I want."

"And what'd you get, huh?" I croaked, bitter saliva gathering in my mouth. "What'd he give you for it?"

She brandished the needles she'd had in her purse. "Smack," she said. "The good stuff, stuff I can't steal from my brothers. It's worth puttin' out for, trust me."

This was all a strange, warped dream, too far removed from reality for me to accept. Was that why she'd dragged me along here? As a cry for help? For someone to tell her that this was wrong and fucked up, pull her back from the edge?

I lived in a world where drunk girls at frat parties got strangled unconscious, woke up with their throats aching and between their legs a raw wound and big gaps in their memories like black holes. I hadn't thought I had any innocence left to lose.

"You want some?"

"No." I recoiled from that shit like a demon faced with a salt circle; even I still had a few shreds of sanity left. "Fuck no."

She rolled her pretty dark eyes and started digging through her purse again. "Here, then," she said, pressing a huge wad of bills into my hand. "Your cut."

I rifled through it in disbelief. I'd just earned more in a couple weeks of half-assed sneaking around than Darry made in a month.

"Am I supposed to stash this under my mattress or somethin'?" I asked with a nervous laugh. "I can't just keep it for myself. Darry needs to pay the bills."

"What are you gonna tell him? That you been runnin' around sellin' drugs for it? Get real." She hitched her purse up. "I'm goin' home. I need to shower."

I wanted to lie down on the sidewalk, my tongue against the concrete, and let the world dissolve around me like an uncoated pill. Maybe then I wouldn't have to live with the weight of my knowledge— my complicity— as I watched her walk away.

* * *

My aunt Rose didn't ask a lot of questions when I wandered over to her house, my hair plastered to my face by the rain and my shoes squelching with every step. As soon as she let me in and gave me a perfunctory greeting, she went back to a moody combination of half-hearted crocheting and sidelong glances at a sepia photograph on her coffee table; towheaded kid playing with a truck in a sandbox, grinning up at the camera. It said 04/16/63 in the corner.

"Who's that?" I asked, leaning in to scrutinize it. He looked a little like Soda, if I squinted, something about the wildness sparkling in his eyes.

"That's my son," she said shortly. "Kevin. He's turning five today."

"... Oh." Was he... dead? She'd never said one word about having kids before. "Did he— um—" I wracked my brains, trying to find the most sensitive phrase for this situation. "I'm real sorry. For your loss. You know, the Davises down the street, their son Andy died a couple years back of diphtheria—"

Or was it polio? Shit, I couldn't remember. Either way, they could probably knock back a bottle of whiskey together.

"He's not dead," she said. I would've bet every dollar bill I'd had on me that the glossiness in her eyes was from mother's little helper. "He lives with my husband— well, not him, he couldn't take care of a cactus on his own. With my mother-in-law."

"Don't he miss you?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around this whole mess. She sure didn't talk much about that husband, either— I was starting to wonder if he slapped her around or something, if that was why they were 'separated'. Her entire life was like some kind of Nancy Drew mystery, and she never dropped enough clues for me to put the whole case together.

"I was... very young when I got married," she said with a breathy, high-pitched laugh. "Not much older than you, really— still just a girl. I didn't know anything about the world." She turned the photograph over and over in her hands, tracing the lines of her son's face. "That woman always takes what she wants. Squeezed every last drop outta me."

"I'm sorry," I said again. "That must've been... rough."

"At least I've got you." She threw her arms around me; I stood stiff in the embrace, choking on her perfume. It'd been a long time since my mother had hugged me, and I craved that affection too much to accept it. "I always wanted a daughter more, anyway. A little doll to dress up."

She didn't talk much after that, drifting off into her own silent world. I should've left, but I didn't have anywhere to go, not really, so I turned on the TV and watched three hours of Petticoat Junction instead. The whole afternoon was starting to feel like a hallucination, memories flitting around my head and mixing with the blare of the screen, and I fell into a daze with her.

* * *

Rose seemed back to normal in a couple of hours, pressing me for details about a school day I hadn't had and trying to find me some new, drier clothes. But before she could whip up a low-cal dinner for the two of us, Darry arrived on the scene, pounding on the door like he wanted to break it down. I'd known who it was the second his fist collided with the wood, had been secretly hoping for it.

He hugged me to him for a brief moment after I answered, knocking the breath right out of me, and then went from relief to absolute fury in a matter of seconds. "You're in deep shit, Jasmine Eugenia," he said, giving me a good shake. "You're in such deep shit, you don't even know how much shit you're in. Do you have any goddamn idea how close I got to callin' the fuzz? You ever pull a stunt like this again, there's gonna be hell to pay."

It was the most comforting scolding I'd ever heard in my life, though I would've rather died than admitted it to him. Darry was so firm and steady, he'd managed to solidify all of my swirling thoughts, convince me that he might just be able to make everything okay.

"And what were you thinking?" he demanded, turning to Rose and still not letting go of me. "Just keeping her here for hours?"

"How was I supposed to know she'd run away?" She crossed her arms under her breasts, and I realized then that Darry had given her a hell of a lot more ammo. All the vulnerability she'd shown around me was gone, replaced by a harder, steelier exoskeleton. "You think I'm a mindreader, now? She didn't exactly write it on her forehead."

"There's a custody agreement," he said with forced politeness. "You get one day a week with her. You already _had_ your day this week."

"I didn't snatch her off the sidewalk and haul her home with me." She brushed away a strand of hair that had escaped her neat beehive. "She showed up all by herself— she _wants_ to be here. Jasmine, hon, don't you like bein' here?"

"Uh, sure?"

"See." She looked as triumphant as Darry had after bagging his first turkey. "You heard it from the horse's mouth. She likes it here."

"Well, no matter what she likes, we've been worried sick, 'cause she's been AWOL all day." Darry was already propelling me outside. "Next time, pick up the damn phone, will you?"

"Says a lot about your parenting skills, doesn't it?" she said coldly. "How long'd it take you to go lookin' for her?"

He slammed the door behind him without so much as a goodbye, then grabbed me by the shoulders again, his breath hot and frantic against my face. "Did you tell her? What I said?"

"No." I wriggled, trying to get free, but it was impossible. "I never tell her shit."

"Good," he said, his relief palpable; I could feel his entire body sag with it. "I was an idiot. You belong at home, with your family. 'Sides—" the corner of his mouth twitched— "Soda was fixin' to run away too if you left. You know you're his favorite."

"Darry Curtis, admittin' that he was an idiot. I got a phone call to make to the Tulsa World. This is bigger news than the Kennedy assassination."

"You're an idiot too," he quickly added, shifting into a scowl. "And you're already grounded for the rest of your life, so get in the damn truck before I add on some time in the afterlife."

"Darry—" My palm clenched around the wad of bills in my pocket.

"Yeah?" he said, jamming the key into the ignition and motioning for me to climb inside. His eyes were like two hunks of sea glass, the color not inherited from anyone else, and I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. What he'd see if I told him the truth, about everything, once and for all— if he'd absolve me.

But that was just a schoolgirl fantasy I should've long since outgrown; there was too much riding on this for me to back out now. I shook my head to get rid of the thought, like it was an Etch-a-Sketch that needed to be wiped clean.

"Nothin'," I said, sliding into the front seat. "It's nothin'. Let's go home."


	13. Daughters

Warning this time: gratuitous (ab)use of flashbacks.

* * *

My English teacher was reading from Heart of Darkness when Pony rapped on the window of the classroom.

 _I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmostphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary._

I shivered, despite the late August heat, and that was when I turned my head and saw him from across the row of desks, standing on tiptoes and peering inside. "Excuse me, ma'am, I gotta... take care of some lady business," I said, my hand in the air, and had bolted before she could wave me off.

"You know I hafta be in class," I hissed when I reached the hall, pulling the door shut behind me. "I can't cut no more. Did somethin' happen?"

Darry had received a remarkably unpleasant phone call from the vice principal about how I'd been assigned to tutor Angela Shepard, and had instead been tutored in the art of delinquency. He was even less impressed to learn that Pony had intercepted all of the previous phone calls _and_ a request for a parent-teacher meeting. So in blatant violation of the Geneva Convention re: collective punishment, as well as common decency, he'd figured the way to get my ass in a seat was to threaten Pony as well— with washing dishes for the next week, if he didn't make sure I was present.

Now my personal bodyguard was getting me to skive off again.

He looked at me with a startling fierce protectiveness; I was the big sister, by a whole year and half, and for most of our lives, I'd been the one fighting his battles. Then I noticed the scraped knuckles on his right hand, still sluggishly bleeding. "I decked Curly."

"The hell for?" I asked, though I had a sneaking suspicion why. "Curly's been to reform school— he knows how to turn a roll of TP into a shiv. You'd better watch your back now."

"He's been sayin'..." He trailed off to clear his throat. "He's been sayin' that he slept with you at a party, a few weeks ago. I _had_ to deck him."

"Pone..." I silently willed a sinkhole to rise up from the ground and swallow me before I had to say the next bit. "I appreciate it an' all, I really do, but... it's true. He didn't just pull that one out his ass." Hadn't I admitted as much at our disastrous family dinner? Did I really have to talk to my little brother about my sex life right now— my naive, innocent little brother, still a kissless virgin?

"Still don't mean he gets to tell all of Will Rogers." He rubbed his sore knuckles up against the palm of the other hand. "It was a... matter of honor."

"You better quit startin' fights at school, 'cause your honor sure seems trigger-happy lately," I sighed. It blew having to be the responsible older sister all the time, when I really wanted to high-five him and buy him a milkshake at the drugstore— I probably would anyway. "You could've gotten suspended for that, if someone saw."

"Man, you don't even _go_ to school no more."

"Nah." I measured my next words carefully. "I think I'm gonna drop out in February. After I turn sixteen."

Ponyboy's jaw unhinged like a snake's right before it clamped down on a mouse. "You're shittin' me."

"I'm a girl," I said. "Darry's not gonna pay for me to go to college to get my MRS degree— you _need_ to go anyway, so you won't be drafted. It makes sense if I drop out and work, bring some money home." I tried my best to smile and gave him a nudge. "You've always been the smart one, Einstein."

"Mom would hate it," he said. "She didn't even want Soda to drop out."

"Mom's dead." It hadn't sounded as harsh in my mind as it did coming out of my mouth; Pony's shoulders still slumped, and he turned away from me. "Don't matter what she wants anymore, does it?"

Pony was the world's biggest mama's boy. He wouldn't listen even if I told him the truth.

* * *

 _"No, Soda," I said, stabbing an accusing finger at his worksheet. I was six, Soda was eight, and having finished my own homework long ago, I considered it my sisterly responsibility to stay at the kitchen table and help him. "You're plussing again. You're supposed to be mul-ti-ply-ing."_

 _"Mama, make her quit it!" He jabbed me with the tip of his pencil, hard enough to break the lead; the eraser had long since been rubbed into shreds, his paper littered with tears. "You don't know nothin', anyway. You're too little."_

 _This was before shit got real bad with Dad, and back when my mother still had a sense of humor. She laughed her loud, unrestrained laugh, swept Soda's sticky bangs off his forehead, and shoved a cookie into my palm— before supper, even. "You'd better stop that if you want to find a husband, Jas," she teased. "Boys don't like girls who act smarter than them."_

 _But later that night, when she and Daddy thought I was long asleep, she sounded anything but amused. "Sometimes I wish Jasmine was the boy, and Soda was the girl," she sighed like a deflating balloon._

 _"Frannie," Daddy said, chiding, but without any weight. I pictured him blowing smoke rings, right in the living room, even though Mama was always telling him he was going to set the whole house on fire. "C'mon now. What's got you thinkin' that?"_

 _"You know Soda's gonna have to support a family someday, find a decent job— but what good are all those brains for Jasmine? They'll just cause her nothin' but trouble when she's grown, with that smart mouth." I heard the flick of the lighter as she got out her own cigarette, a habit she tried to pretend she didn't have. "It'd be better if she was a fool. She'd have an easier life, that's for sure."_

 _I could read between the lines of her words— that it'd be better if we could swap looks, too. Because it wouldn't matter if Soda was dark like Dad, not as much, and wouldn't she prefer to have a daughter as blonde as her, my golden, beautiful mother?_

 _I didn't help Soda with his homework after that._

* * *

"Hey, Curly, you been gettin' some real good tail lately, huh?"

He spun around to face me, and I noted with satisfaction that the bruises didn't look pretty. The hall was almost empty after the last bell rang, no teachers around, luckily for the sake of this conversation. "You come to get a slap in?" he asked with grim resignation. "'Cause Ponyboy packs a wicked right hook, lemme tell you, so I think I'm all set."

"I don't care what you say 'bout me," I said, trying very, very hard to focus on how little I cared. "But you better not sic none of your buddies on him, or my brothers' outfit might just have problems with Shepard. You deserved it, fair's fair."

He started rifling through his locker— yeah, I expected he'd have more smokes, suspicious baggies of 'oregano', and what sure looked like firecrackers in there than schoolbooks. "Surprised you ain't threatenin' me with your new man."

"Are you— God, I can't believe it. You're _jealous_." I let out a most unladylike snort. "Can't think of a better reason for why you got a problem with Dallas all of a sudden."

"Fine, I'll give you your better reason." He slammed his locker shut and leaned up against it. "I want you and Angela the hell away from whatever he's dragged you into, 'cause this ain't gonna end well."

"I got no idea what you're talkin' about," I said, examining my nails, but my heart was pounding into my throat. "Save it for someone who cares, Carlos."

"He tell you to say that if you got questioned?"

"Keep your fucking voice down," I hissed, scanning the area for witnesses. "Some of us don't wanna discover what prison food tastes like from the inside, you know?"

"I ain't that dumb," he said, "not when it comes to my kid sister. Even Tim's startin' to figure out what's goin' on, and he ain't never home no more. She's hidin' stacks of cash under her mattress, our ma won't get off my ass 'bout her missin' pills—

"You don't know me at all," I said, in an uncanny echo of what Angela had told me a few days ago. "We screwed at your brother's party. The end. Ain't none of your business what I get up to now."

"You really don't get it, do you?" Curly gave the locker a brutal kick, the sound ringing in my eardrums. "What, you think you're his girlfriend now? He doesn't care about anyone but himself— that's his MO. The only reason he's messin' with you at all is 'cause your daddy used to be the biggest dealer on the East Side."

"Did I pop your cherry or somethin'?" I said, unable to stop the viciousness spewing from my mouth once I'd gotten started. "My snatch the only one you ever seen up close, that why you're so obsessed with me?" I clutched the straps of my purse so hard my knuckles turned white. "You were a _fuck_ , Curly, and you didn't exactly rock my world. So quit the knight in shining armor act and give it to me straight."

"This ain't funny no more," he said in a voice that was suddenly as sharp and jagged as broken glass. "Winston's movin' into River King territory, and if the Kings think he's as good as one of us, it's gonna be a bloodbath. So you tell your damn boyfriend that if he still wants a share of Shepard cash, he needs to haul ass back to Buck's place and stay there."

"Here's a bit of advice for you," I near-whispered, getting close enough to spit in his face. "If you don't stop your lil' friends from callin' me the school slut, won't they want to know how your dick wilts like a lettuce leaf after a couple drinks."

He cussed me out, making a furious cacophany until I was halfway out the door. I regretted nothing.

* * *

" _You sure your folks are asleep?" Stan Michaels asked me, his already-squinty eyes scrunched up further as he stared down my house. The lights were all off, giving it a ghostly look, but appearances could be deceiving. God knew I'd heard Dad pounce on Darry and Soda even in the dead of night— "I needed bat ears to make it through the Pacific, and y'all think I can't tell when you're crawlin' back in from Heartbreak Hotel?"_

 _"They usually are at three in the morning," I said, leaning into his broad chest and sighing contentedly. I was fourteen, my blood thrumming with a mix of rum and coke, and the biggest dreamboat in the Brumly gang had just let me sit in the passenger seat for his drag race on the Ribbon. I had good reason to feel confident, on top of the world— wait until Sylvia heard about this._

 _"You better get goin' quick," he said, nudging me across our weed-filled lawn. "Don't want your daddy threatenin' to blow me to kingdom come with his shotgun."_

 _"One more kiss?" I wheedled on my tiptoes, and that one kiss might've turned into a solid makeout session if Mom's dulcet tones hadn't sliced through the air._

 _"Young lady, if you don't come inside right this second, I ain't gonna be held responsible for what happens to them Beatles records of yours—"_

 _And there she was on the porch, of course wearing her oldest, rattiest bathrobe, her hair in curlers, for maximum embarrassment. I meandered over to the house like I was headed to my execution— Stan just bounced, satisfied that I'd arrived to (relative) safety— and got greeted with a solid whack to the behind. "Just what do you think you're wearin', huh?" she demanded, shepherding me through the door before I could squawk a protest. "No, don't you even start. Get in here."_

 _(At least it wasn't my daddy. I could already imagine his response— what the hell was Stan doing with his little girl, he had a revolver in his underwear drawer, and he sure wasn't afraid to go back to prison.)_

 _I expected her to finish what she'd started out there, if you catch my drift— she wasn't that harsh a mother or anything, as much as I liked to bitch about her, but she didn't put up with much shit from her kids._ _Instead, she grabbed the notepad from beside the phone and scribbled on it with a pencil._

 _"Erase it until you've gotten it all out."_

 _"I can't," I said, rubbing the paper until the eraser was worn down to a tiny nub. What the hell was she playing at? "It won't go any more."_

 _"No, you can't," she said, her jaw set and her eyes steely. I could see millennia of disapproval in that expression, Jesus himself come back to judge. "That piece of paper is like your virtue. Once you make a mark on it, you can try and erase it, but it's never gonna go away, is it?"_

* * *

I couldn't shake the way Curly and Tim and Darry thought about us for the rest of the evening— as victims of Dallas, just little girls, dragged around by his whims. Maybe that was easier than thinking about us choosing to be wicked and bad and wrong all on our own.

But there was enough goodness and honesty and all that shit in my heart for me to feel so very uncomfortable stashing drug money under my mattress and not sharing it. I'd tried and failed to come up with what'd be more useful to spend it on than the mortgage or utilities, or what I could do with it that Darry wouldn't immediately notice and interrogate me about. My solution—

"Ma, I'm _twelve_ ," Grace insisted with her best pre-adolescent pout. "I don't need no babysitter."

"You do when you're grounded." Mrs. Mathews snapped a dishtowel at her more menacingly than I'd realized a dishtowel could be snapped. "Sneakin' out of the house is one thing, but in my best pumps and dungarees? No, sister."

"Ugh." She flopped onto the worn-out couch like an evening with me was an appointment with a guillotine. "Why can't Two-Bit watch me, then?"

"'Cause if the good Lord's seen it fit to bless your brother with another job, ain't nothin' gonna make me keep him from a shift," she said, checking to see if there was lipstick on her teeth before her barmaid shift started. "Jasmine, hon, emergency numbers are by the phone, and you help yourself to anything in the fridge. And make sure Grace does her math homework, for the love of God."

(I grimaced. If Two-Bit managed to hold down a job for longer than a month, I'd consider it a bigger miracle than Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead; he was still in eleventh grade at eighteen and a half for a reason. Last time he'd been fired, he'd shown up to work at the hardware store dead drunk and tried to piss in a display toilet, and that was a highlight reel compared to some of his exploits.)

"I hate you," Grace yelled as Mrs. Mathews shut the door behind her, not dignifying that with a response. "She's the worst, you got no idea. Between her and Two-Bit, I can't do _nothin'_."

"You know the last thing I said to my mama? That I hated her."

"No, it wasn't," she scoffed, rolling her eyes like only a twelve-year-old girl could. "You just made that up. That don't happen 'cept in movies."

"Okay, fine, you got me." Damn, her bullshit detector was stronger than I'd expected. "But we were fightin' the night she died, I promise. I'm pretty sure I wished she was dead a couple times 'fore the fuzz showed up on our doorstep."

"Why?"

"I was real mad at her back then," I said with a bitter snort, careening down memory lane. "My brothers, they got to do everything, she never told them no, but I had to step up and be a little lady." It didn't take me long to pull up an example. "She had this home daycare for a while, with all these rugrats running around, and I had to wipe their asses and feed them bottles too— 'cause I was gonna be a wife and mother some day, I had to learn all this, but it wasn't right for the boys to help out..."

It sure sounded dumb, now that I'd had to go through her drawers and pick what clothes she'd be buried in, but I didn't know how else to express it out loud. Being her daughter, a very much loved daughter, but never quite the daughter she'd wanted— and I'd bristled at her hypocrisy. How Frances Curtis, a woman who'd thrown aside her whole family to marry an Indian and never took nobody's shit, spent half her time telling me to quit fighting, keep that smart mouth shut, remember my place— like she was afraid I'd inherited anything from her.

"This story got a point?"

"Fine, I'll be straight with you," I said, fixing her with the evil eye. "Your mama's right— you better quit sneakin' outta here at night dressed all skimpy. You're twelve, Jesus Christ— you're gonna get yourself into trouble you can't get out of."

"What do you care?" Grace demanded, her bottom lip sticking out. "You ain't my boss."

Lord, did I want to fetch her a slap that'd make her ears ring. "Your brother's worried 'bout you," I said finally. "And when your brother's worried 'bout you, I gotta hear it all, so spare me, please."

(I thought about her dressed in her still-young mother's party clothes, sipping some messed-up drink from a Solo cup, until her head spun and she'd agree to anything, not understanding. Flat on her back—)

"Fine, I won't," she huffed, not that I'd expected her to cheerfully obey her fifteen-year-old babysitter. "You gonna make me do my math homework, too?"

"Nah," I said, done with imparting moral lessons and feeling very, very old all of a sudden. "We can do nails, and I'll show you how to play poker. Lecture over."

( _"You probably wish you'd just had the boys, you like them so much better than me!"_ )

* * *

"I don't need no little girls helpin' me pay the bills," Darry chided me lightly, as I walked through the front door later that night with a stack of dollars. "What do you think you're gonna cover, the postage on those things?"

"Look an' see."

"This is sure a lot of money for babysittin'," he said as he rifled through it, wrinkles forming on his forehead, and I bit the inside of my cheek to conceal my grimace. I'd tried to work out how much I could realistically slip him, without arousing his suspicion, but it looked like I'd miscalculated— bad. "What'd you do, scrub her whole house from top to bottom?"

I thought fast, too fast. "Mrs. Mathews... she's real broken up over what happened to Mom and Dad," I said, attempting to make my features seem innocent and sympathetic, trustworthy. It was harder than I'd expected. "She wanted to send a little extra along, to help out."

His shoulders stiffened, and he threw his head back, pride wounded. "You take this right back to Mrs. Mathews," he said, brandishing the wad of cash like a weapon, "and tell her we don't need no charity. Especially since Two-Bit's lazy ass can't hold down a job— she could find a better use for it than us. We manage."

"I can't just bring it back," I said hurriedly. "She'd be so offended, Darry, God, she'd just send me home with even more cash and a pan of lasagna. And you can't say we don't need the money." I hated myself for what came out of my mouth next. "The more we got, the less Rose can use hers against us."

He pulled me to his side with one arm and kissed the top of my head; I melted into the embrace, liking it a little more than I should've. I was a grown-ass woman, selling dope on the street, dating Dallas fucking Winston and interesting enough to keep his attention, but I still soaked up his rare bits of affection like a dehydrated man in the desert. "You're a good kid," he said, with more tenderness in his voice than I'd heard in a long time. "You didn't have to do this— you're gonna make a solid wife, you know. Thinking 'bout what's best for the household, like Mom did."

Guilt paralyzed me, a watery octopus squirming around in my stomach, because I knew what had really gone into every dirty cent— the grass, the Valium, the uppers. But I didn't contradict him.

* * *

 _"How come I can't play football no more?"_

 _Darry, five years older and infinitely wiser in his mind, had never had much time for me, but I'd always been included in Pony and Soda's games before with us so close in age— wrestling, shooting empty beer cans off the porch, once even cops and robbers with Daddy's gun. Except now they'd invited some of their friends over, Stevie and Johnny, and by the edicts of Coach Darry, I'd been summarily banished back inside. Nobody protested._

 _"Because you're nine, you're a little lady now," Mama said, smoking a cigarette right at the kitchen table; I wrinkled my nose at the smell. She smoked a lot there lately, not bothering to hide it from us anymore; sometimes with Uncle Gene on one of his 'good' days, laughing about the things they got up to as kids in Lubbock, sometimes with her boss at the diner, Howard, who kept putting his hand on her thigh and squeezing. "The boys can't play as rough as they want if they're worried 'bout hurtin' you."_

 _"I don't wanna be a lady." I folded my arms across my chest, dangerously close to a tantrum. "It ain't fair— Pony's just a baby, I'm better than he is."_

 _"Now, don't talk like that— wouldn't Mother's girl rather be helpin' me with supper than gettin' dirty with all those boys?" She pushed some of my messy curls out of my face, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I couldn't handle nothin' if you weren't here. Your brothers need a labeled map to find where the laundry hamper is, I swear."_

 _I sank into her approval like it was a warm bath— since Daddy went to the slammer, she'd always called Darry the man of the house, said she relied on him to keep this place going. It almost made up for my shunning, the stab of shame when Darry sent me back inside, not even looking at me, his eyes on the almighty football. "Why don't I put on some Ella Fitzgerald, how 'bout?" she continued. "We'll have our own fun, just us girls."_

 _So I didn't fight any more, helping her roll meatballs, still basking in the glow of being called 'Mother's girl'. But I couldn't help staring out the window, hearing the fevered shouts waft in, and I hated them then. I hated them for casting me out, and Mama just accepting it, a fact as undeniable as the law of gravity. Telling me that this was how it ought to be._


	14. Playing with Fire

Back to our regularly scheduled plot...

* * *

"Hey, Rapunzel, let down your hair already." Yet another pebble bounced off the glass. "I ain't goin' through no front door."

"Dally, this is a one-story house, Jesus," I groaned as I yanked back the curtains. "You're gonna break the window."

"You wanna let me in before I have to break the window?"

Making sure to roll my eyes as hard as I could, I hauled it up and let him crawl inside. "Go put on somethin' pretty," he said once he was vertical again. "I'm takin' you out on a date. A real one."

"But I'm grounded."

I really didn't think the amount of disdain in the glance he gave me was warranted. "You fucking sell drugs, babe," he said slowly. "You don't _get_ grounded."

I'd been catching up on my homework (yeah, believe it or not, I still had to do that shit if I didn't want to fail the tenth grade); I wasn't dressed too sexy, either, in some old jeans and a flannel shirt that had once belonged to my mother. "This a business trip?" I asked, twirling my pencil between my fingers and trying to look bored.

"Nah, pleasure, trust me," he said, tilting his head to the side. "You, me, trashiest bar on the Ribbon. What do you say?"

There was the world in this house, where my brothers teased me and watched football on TV and laughed when I yelled at them for forgetting that the _fucking_ dishes went in the _fucking_ sink, and then there was the seedy underworld I'd plunged into. Living with one foot on the brakes and another on the throttle would lead to ruin; I'd seen my daddy crash and burn trying to walk that razor's edge. So part of me wanted to tell him no, still riding the high of my temporary return to being a good girl— but the demanding glint in his eyes called me to danger like a siren song. I couldn't even begin to resist it.

"You just wanna see my ass," I said as I stripped down and cussed my way into the little black dress Rose had bought me. I secretly enjoyed the power it gave me— how he couldn't look away, trailing over every slope and curve on my body. The only kind I'd ever have over him, really.

"It's a pretty nice ass, you know. I don't mind the view."

(This house had never been as safe as I wanted to pretend, darkness woven into its very foundation as I lay awake between my princess sheets, listening to Daddy whisper-shout and haggle over bags of dope on the porch. Maybe my innocence was just an illusion, one I should've abandoned a long time ago.)

* * *

The Ribbon was a multi-lane expanse of trash— no better way to phrase that. Shitty fast food places, bars that doubled as boxing rings, fights spilling over onto every street, all illuminated in neon. I loved it.

"Ain't nothin' to do in this hick city," Dallas said, making another sharp jerk with the steering wheel as he pulled into the parking lot of Atomic Liquor. We were in Buck's beat-up old junker— repairing Dally's would've cost more than it had been worth, after Sylvia finished with it. "God _damn_ , I miss Brooklyn, lemme tell you. Dumbest thing my daddy ever did, movin' us back here."

"Lord, how old were you, even?" I said with a laugh. "Eleven, twelve? How much of that nightlife were you seein'?"

"Enough," he said, his grin all sharp teeth as he put his hand on the small of my back, ushering me inside.

Of course, because I had the world's shittiest luck, we'd just planted our asses into seats and ordered drinks when Tim marched over with a broad I'd never spoken to before, but dimly recognized. She looked like a flower that had been kept in a greenhouse its entire life, that's the best way I can put it— girlish and shy, the hem of her skirt downright decent. "Tim—"

"Go on and get us a couple of margaritas, okay, baby?" he said, the order more gentle than I would've expected from him. "I gotta handle some business."

The second she skittered off, all that gentleness eroded like a dune beneath a wave. "You fucking owe me." Tim gulped down a glass of whiskey nearly in one go, starting off his tirade without any preamble. "You slept with my sister, goddammit, you _owe_ me."

"Your jailbait sister kissed _me_ , and that's all that happened." Dallas wrapped an arm around my waist, his fingers curled dangerously close to my breast. "In case you ain't noticed, I'm sleepin' with someone else's little sister now."

"I can't believe you still call yourself a man." If Tim gripped that glass any tighter, it was going to shatter. "You're breakin' code. _Sacred_ code."

"Part of that same damn code is respectin' your mama, and if I had a dime for every time you said _Mary Magdalene_ was a stupid whore, I wouldn't be sellin' drunk fools at Buck's knockoff coke." He leaned forward, as smug as a panther that had just devoured a good meal. "I'm tryna have a date here, so spit it out already."

"I don't know what Luis an' Alberto are playin' at now," he said, his already-bulging eyes filled with an animalistic panic, "but they owe Joe some product they ain't givin' up for anything. And if I don't deliver—"

"This is real sad an' all for you, sorry to hear it, but I'm not really seein' what this has to do with me—"

"Cut the shit," Tim said, slamming both palms down on the bar. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week, desperation making him sloppy. "I know what your daddy's sittin' on— a fucking goldmine."

"He's a washed-up old—" Dally cussed for at least a minute straight, creating expressions I was sure hadn't existed before he coined them. "He's fightin' pitbulls now, I told you. He don't sell no more. Goddamn, he's pushin' forty, and you think he's still in the business?"

"I ain't askin' for Fort Knox, here, just enough to settle this score."

"He said he's not interested." I flipped open my compact and made sure none of my lipstick was on my teeth, watching Tim vibrate with nervous energy out the corner of my eye. "You deaf or somethin'?"

"You shut up," he snapped; I got the distinct impression that he'd had enough of women talking back to him. "How old are you, fucking fifteen, sittin' at a bar with Dallas Winston? You're damn lucky I got bigger problems right now than tellin' your brother on you."

"Don't you tell her to shut up." Dallas cocked his own glass menacingly. "For someone _beggin'_ me for a favor, Shepard, you ain't doin' a great job so far."

"What the hell is it gonna take?" Tim sounded like he was being forced to eat shit. "Name the price already."

"I want your car."

"You want my balls in a little purse, too?" I'd never heard Tim laugh before, and it made me think a spoon was scraping against his throat. "Not a chance in hell. Get a job and buy your own."

"Shepard," he said slowly, "you think I can just waltz in there and go 'hey, Dad, missed you bunches, where's the heroin?'"

"Winston," Tim said with as much gravitas, "if I don't get this to Joe, I'm headed up shit's creek."

Dally smiled— the expression never looked quite right on his face unless it was triumphant, and in that moment he knew he'd won. "Then you won't have no problem agreein' to my terms, will you?"

Tim let out a stream of cuss words so filthy that even I winced. Then he waved the bartender over, got himself another drink, and chugged that one too. "Fine, you can have the car. But this had better be a Mount fuckin' _Everest_ of dope. I wanna buy myself a new Lamborghini after the deals go through."

"Joe?" I asked, all faux-innocence, after Tim had stalked off back to his girl— lucky lady, that one. "Who's that?"

"He's head of the Kings," Dally said, knocking back a few more sips of his whiskey and then gesturing for another one; ice flowed through my veins, prickling my scalp. "Sick motherfucker, shit— he's got some kind of massive brothel business goin' on." He propped his chin up with his fist. "Can't wait to find out why his biggest supplier's stiffin' him."

* * *

"You know, I don't usually let the broads I date call the shots for me." He had a lead foot as he hit the gas— he wasn't much of a driver sober, and now that he was rip-roaring drunk, I considered it proof of God's existence that he'd only knocked over a mailbox so far. "Remind me why I'm takin' you burglarizin'?"

"I've met Sylvia, tough guy, so save it," I said as we approached a house even more decrepit than the ones surrounding it. "'Sides, you can't pull this off alone. Better have a lookout."

For obvious reasons, I'd never gone cruising on down to this part of the East Side, not far from where the Cades lived— the place oozed abject misery, and Norm's pad was no exception. A noxious mix of hypodermic needles, shattered glass, and... dog shit? littered the yellow, overgrown lawn; the front of the house looked like it hadn't been whitewashed since its construction in 1865. "Doubt he's even home," Dallas said, kicking at the wilted grass after we'd climbed out of the car, "on a Friday night. Just hate comin' back. All them happy memories, right?"

He spit on the ground, and it landed on one of the broken bottles spangling the grass. It was uncomfortable, realizing that he'd watched a solid chunk of my childhood play out, while I knew almost nothing about his— mostly because I couldn't picture him as a child at all. Somehow he'd spontaneously generated in Tulsa at thirteen-going-on-fourteen, snarling, waving a switchblade around like a banner, but of course that wasn't the truth. He'd been little once, clinging to a few shreds of innocence, even when he was pushing drugs all throughout Brooklyn.

(Maybe I just couldn't imagine a childhood that had produced _Dallas_ without breaking down in tears.)

The front door was unlocked as he slowly creaked it open; those hinges needed a good oiling or twenty. "Be quiet," he said, pressing a finger up to his lips, and I got an uneasy sense of déjà vu. "He keeps most of this shit under the couch cushions, in the drawers— okay, fine, he keeps it everywhere, but that damn couch is like a piñata."

Unsurprisingly, the house turned out to be as much of a shithole on the inside as it appeared on the outside— those dogs crapped indoors, too, and the ramshackle furniture and punched-in walls didn't impress me much either. I pulled up one of the cushions on the cigarette burn-ridden couch, to reveal— holy _shit_. "Jackpot," I whispered. "Just _look_ at this."

"The hell's goin' on here?"

"Motherfucker," Dallas said, almost inaudibly, as a shadowy figure moved closer to us and flicked the light switch on. "Mother _fucker_."

Norman Winston didn't look much like Dallas, but they had the same eyes— pale blue, almost colorless, scrutinizing the scene the two of us had created. He carried himself with the air of a boxer long past his prime, maybe because of his crooked, many-times-broken nose, maybe because of the pitbull he had snarling at his feet. "I told you to get your shit outta here and bounce."

"You think I fuckin' wanna be here more than I hafta be?"

" _Thought_ you was livin' with that cowboy Buck Merril now, an' good riddance." There was a needle still dangling out of his arm, the punctured vein bulging ugly and thick; and here I'd always figured horse made you real calm and sleepy. "You stealin' from me again, punkass?"

"You know, Norm," Dally said, rubbing his chin between his fingers, "state of Oklahoma says you're legally obligated to provide for me 'til I'm eighteen years of age. Ain't stealin', just takin' what I'm owed."

"My money an' my dope, that's takin' what you're owed?" His voice was low and raspy, more frightening than any shout could've been; the air thrummed with a dangerous tension, the two of them inches away from bridging the space between them and having it out. "Who's this lil' fast thang?" he then asked, finally looking me up and down. He didn't seem to like what he saw. "She a redskin?"

I bristled like a porcupine with its spines coming up; Graham had called me a redskin too, and if Norm were a broad, I would've had to be pulled off of her. "Don't fuckin' call her that." Dallas instinctively stepped closer to me, at the same time as I said, "We _really_ prefer Native or somethin'."

"Sylvia was prettier, even if the drapes didn't match the carpet," he said without an ounce of shame. "She kick your sorry ass to the curb? 'Cause you sure downgraded with this one."

"You goddamn pervert." Dallas's fists were clenched, and anyone other than his drugged-up daddy would have had the sense to either gear up or run when that happened. "I need this for a job, so get the hell outta my way— you _owe_ me that much."

There was desperation in his voice, not a demand. When he twisted his wrist to the side, I could see his burn scars shine.

"Like I'm gonna buy that shit— you ain't no better than Anya was." He spit on the ground. "A junkie whore."

In a blur of hair and cheekbones and rage, Dallas jumped him, knocking him to the floor; the dog barked at increasingly louder volumes, but it hadn't been taught how to react when its two owners were pummeling each other. "You're callin' my mama a trick now?" Dallas demanded, getting him into a headlock that he quickly disentangled himself from. "When you gave her this poison shit? You motherfucking—"

My concern for Dally's safety vanished once I realized that neither one was packing or had a blade, and the dog was as useless as an old lady's poodle; I just thought it was pathetic, a grown-ass man fistfighting his teenage son and rolling around on the floor with him, after they exchanged the kind of snipes fit for a boys' locker room. I tried to imagine my daddy considering one of my brothers a serious opponent, not a child, and couldn't stomach it. "Just 'cause you got a dick the size of a fuckin' tampon," Norm lovingly interjected between attempts at breaking Dally's collarbone, "don't mean you have to scrape the bottom of the rez to get laid—"

I grabbed the heroin and ran.

* * *

"How much did you get away with?"

When Dallas slid into the driver's seat, he was dripping blood all over it— his nose leaked like a broken faucet, barely having healed from when Tim had smashed it, and he'd been walking with a pronounced limp. Still, he grinned at me, his hands shaking with adrenaline.

"Enough." I handed the sack over to him— I hadn't thought it was that much, what I'd managed to grab while they were rolling around, but that grin didn't falter as he sifted through the baggies of discolored powder.

"Lucky we got outta there with anythin' at all. Really didn't expect him to be home, lousy motherfucker, on a Friday night too." He sifted through the pile like a gold miner back in '49, extracting the purer white bags from the darker, dirtier ones. "That should be good enough for ol' Tim," he said once he'd taken out most of the pricier bags. " _More_ than good enough. I'm sellin' the rest myself."

"How come your daddy hates you so much?" I asked— mostly because I just couldn't wrap my head around it, the sheer hostility blazing between them. Though Dally was a sight more pleasant, nothing about his lifestyle seemed at all opposed to Norm's.

He fell silent for a couple of seconds. "Fucker blames me," he finally said, and brought his hand down on the horn, hard enough to make it blare out a brief salvo. "That my mama's dead— says I drove her to it. Fuckin' bullshit— I was _five_. Imagine bein' married to _him_ longer'n ten minutes and not mainlinin' some of the product. He's the one who got her hooked in the first place, anyway."

I couldn't contradict any of that; Norm inspired a primal dread in me too, the way my ancestors had felt when confronted with spiders or fire or starvation. "Think I got a pretty good idea."

"Your dad was more my dad— not that I ever asked for one," he said flatly, without being prompted, sticking his finger into his mouth to feel the bloody space where his molar had been. "Norm finishin' off in my mama was the end of his parenting, trust me."

I understood that if I commented on that unprecedented show of affection, he'd deny it to his grave, and probably haunt me after death to deny it even more. "Don't get why you're doin' this." I slouched further into the seat, broken springs and all, my thighs sticking to the hot leather. "Messin' with the Kings, movin' into their territory. Seems pretty risky."

"That ain't your problem."

"The hell do you mean, it ain't my problem?" I was starting to feel the first tendrils of temper cloud my veins, and well, it was me. Never took long for that bit of temper to detonate worse than Little Boy over Hiroshima. "I'm out here near gettin' shot for the product, and I can't even find out what your agenda is? I have to hear the filtered version from fuckin' Curly, of all people."

"Look, baby," he said, his words dripping condescension like water from a sponge, "you don't have to worry 'bout none of that, okay? I'm the man, I make the decisions. You just sell where I tell you."

"Maybe I oughta tell my brothers, where I'm sellin' for you."

It was an empty threat, one that I had a lot more to lose from than him, but I still braced myself for him to explode in anger. Instead, he just laughed. "Oh man, honey, okay, you got me there." He reached out to run his fingers through my hair, a gesture clearly meant to pacify me. "When Tim shows up snivelin' at Joe's door with a couple baggies of my daddy's _black tar_ heroin, that's gonna be an even bigger shitshow than if he ain't got nothin', and I get a free car outta this whole deal. Wish I could be there to watch the fireworks." He jammed the key into the ignition, then yanked it out again. "It's the kind they sell south of the border too. Won't Joe just _love_ that."

"Why?" I insisted again. In retrospect, I should've asked this question a long time ago. "Why are you turnin' them all against each other?"

He shrugged, like he genuinely didn't understand the question— maybe _couldn't_ understand it. "'Cause it makes me money, sweetheart, fair bit more than my usual corners. Them dumbass Socs the Kings sell to got no idea how much the product is worth— they'll pay whatever you tell 'em the price is, and they don't know none of the dirty tricks." He smirked at me. "'Sides. It's fun. God knows this place is a fuckin' drag, compared to New York. Gotta spice it up a bit."

I faced my mother's choice, right then and there. I made it.

"That girl Tim was with... Gabriela Lopez." I rubbed my temples. "Ain't she the same one that got shot at the Dingo?"

"Yeah," Dallas said with a snort out the side of his mouth, "that's Tim's type, all right. Damsels in distress. She batted them long eyelashes in his direction and he came runnin'."

"So what's _your_ type?" I let him pull me across the console and into the backseat, straddling him now, almost on top of him. I wanted to scrape his bone marrow out with a spoon. I wanted to break him open, find out everything that made him tick.

"Come on," he said, "you know I like 'em wild." He slipped his hand inside the back of my dress, clumsily yanking at the zipper and letting the fabric cascade down my torso. "Like to tame 'em."

"You think you can tame me?" I said, unable to stop the laugh that erupted from my lips. I got close to him, close enough to claim, close enough to kill. "Maybe I'll tame you first."

He flipped us so that I was under him, pinning me to the leather of the backseat by the wrists, and kissed me hard. "But you don't want that," he said, the note of hesitation in his voice belying his words. "Do you? It'd sure make things less exciting."

I was too proud to incline my head either way. Mostly, I was glad that his chronic hit-it-and-quit-it ways hadn't extended to me; that he hadn't lost interest yet and gone running back to Sylvia, who I knew for a fact was a lot better in the sack. (But she was with Johnny now. How messed up was that?) "What about redskins? That your type, too?"

He kissed me again, sloppily, and reached up my skirt, feeling where I was already growing wet. For him, goddammit, him and the tornado he'd sent through the last scraps of my ordinary life. "Ain't I makin' it clear?" he panted, breaking away long enough to catch his breath, then pressing his lips against the column of my neck.

I was still buzzed, the last remnants of alcohol in my head killing my inhibitions. He was, too, and I didn't have to ask why. It was easier that way, for us both.


	15. Snake in the Grass

It's been too long since I thanked you guys for reading and supporting me :)

* * *

If my life had an overarching theme at age fifteen, it was 'never trust a Shepard'. Important addition— 'never trust a humiliated Shepard to take _jack_ lying down.'

"Dallas," Darry started as the porch door clattered shut behind him, calm like the stillness before a lightning strike, "you wanna explain why Tim just told me my kid sister was on your arm last night, at the shadiest bar in Tulsa?"

Dally was never much good at apologies— he took refuge in audacity— but even he looked sheepish right then. "It was just a date, man," he said. "Tim's got a stick up his ass 'bout me, always has. I wouldn't let anythin' happen to her."

With more agility than I knew he had, Darry grabbed him by the arm and hauled him right out of his chair; the two of us had been playing a half-hearted game of poker for cigarettes with Soda, and the cards he'd been holding scattered all over the floor. "Gonna ask you a yes or no question here, buddy. It's real simple. You give my sister drugs?"

Two bright points of color appeared at the tops of his cheekbones; he looked the picture of offended innocence, and it unsettled me more than I wanted to admit. I'd never known him to be a good liar before. "Who the fuck do you think I am?"

He pulled me over to him too, roughly jerking my sleeve up before I could voice a protest, then breathing an audible sigh of relief when he saw the crook of my elbow. "What were you lookin' for, huh?" I demanded, pulling it back down at the speed of light. "Track marks?"

"You're the reason she's gettin' taken away," he said, ignoring me entirely, angry bile in every one of his jerky motions as he grabbed Dallas by the shoulders and gave him a shake. "You know what that social worker bitch told me, from the beginning? That there's too many 'bad influences' around here, and that's why she thought it'd better for Jasmine to live with a woman she'd never met. 'Cause _you_ can't lay off the goddamn dope. 'Cause _you_ can't get your shit together, no matter who else pays for it."

"Right, it's just me," Dallas scoffed, but I could see that the words had struck him hard. "Ain't like Steve hasn't been arrested a thousand fuckin' times for stealin' hubcaps and cars and shit. Ain't like Two-Bit ain't sittin' on all them shoplifting convictions. Ain't like _you_ don't let Soda and Pony get into fistfights with Socs."

"No, no, don't downplay it," Darry said, and though he'd always been closer to Dad, his nasty smirk then reminded me painfully of Mom. "You're so damn proud of your record, Dally. The Shepards, six trips to juvie, more misdemeanors... oh, right, I missed that even the fuckin' high school banned you from the campus."

"Your daddy ever proud of his?" Dallas said, a slow smile unfurling on his face. "'Cause between you an' me, bud, I'm pretty sure that's what's got Miz Edwards real hot under the collar."

"Goddamn you. _Goddamn_ you." Darry slammed his fist into the wall, fortunately not hard enough to make a hole, and span back around to face him. "You don't get to play that card. _You_ , of all people—"

"Ain't my fault you're ashamed of him," Dallas said with a careless shrug, but I could see every one of his muscles tensing up, preparing for battle. This wasn't at all like last time, when he'd sanguinely accepted his ass-kicking as a necessary price to pay. "You remember who he was, Darry? Your _Apache_ daddy, workin' construction, the ex-con?" He snorted loudly. "You think he didn't notice you never brought none of your friends home?"

Darry didn't reply with words, but only with a shove that knocked him into the kitchen table. "He should've thrown you out on your ass. You gave him more shit than the four of us put together."

"Don't hit him!" I yelled, trying to get between the two of them, before Soda dragged me back by the tail of my blouse. "Nothin' happened, Darry, I swear. Lay off."

"Shut up, Jasmine, this ain't your business," Darry snapped at me, batting me aside like I was a mosquito. "You got no idea what's good for you, and he ain't."

"Don't talk to her like that." Once Dallas had gotten his wind again, he stood up and shoved him right back, hard enough to slam him into the wall; that'd leave a nasty goose egg. "Who the fuck do you think you are now? She ain't even that much younger than you."

"Her _brother_ —"

"You ain't Dad," he said, and my jaw slackened at the word. I'd heard 'Mom' come out of his mouth a few times, accidental slips, but never 'Dad' before today. "You're fuckin' _twenty_ , man, you ain't nobody's daddy. Especially not mine."

You could've cut through that silence with a switchblade. "Dally, you ain't gonna see twenty," Darry finally said, his tone mockingly gentle. "You'll be lucky if you see eighteen, at this rate. And I'll be damned if you drag my sister into that grave with you."

"Man, just admit it already," Dally taunted, beyond reason at this point. "You're a fucking traitor to your own kind. You spent all of high school lickin' them Socs' balls, and now that the gravy train ran out, you're pretendin' you been playin' for the same team all along."

"Don't you talk shit about him," Soda cut in, his own fists clenched hard enough to turn the knuckles white. "This has gone on too long, Dally, I'm fuckin' sick of it. I didn't have a problem with you datin' Jasmine, but takin' her on your jobs with you? That's too far."

"Why shouldn't I talk shit?" Dallas laughed as he turned on him, a half-hysterical howl. "When he can't even defend his own sister after—"

I slashed a finger across my throat, moving as though I was in a trance, and when he met my eyes, I could see him realize that he'd made a terrible mistake. "Defend her after what?" Darry asked slowly. "Defend my own sister after _what_?"

"Nothin'," Dallas said, his tongue darting out from between his chapped lips and wetting them a little. "Nothin'."

"Fuck this." Darry didn't even stop long enough to change out of his sweaty gym clothes before storming right out the door.

Dallas had always had a flair for the dramatic, and he sure as hell wasn't going to be outdone when it came to making an exit. "I'm sorry," he mouthed at me, genuineness leaking into every gesture, and then slammed the door himself loud enough for my ears to ring.

A wave of memory crashed over me, hard enough to take my breath away, as Soda and I stared at each other in the aftermath. My mama, her face set in grim determination, kicking my daddy out of the house; the way he'd grabbed his keys and run right out, not even saying goodbye before skidding down the driveway.

It'd be another year and half before I saw him again.

* * *

 _"Do you want to spend the rest of your life in prison?"_

 _If Dad was hollering at me like that, I'd probably mess my pants— Dallas just balanced on the two hind legs of his chair, blood smeared all over his face. "Not particularly... sir," he added after a long pause, the title dripping with sarcasm._

 _Dad stared straight up at the ceiling, mouthing words Mom would make us gargle with Dial for. "You're damn lucky the worst that happened to you tonight was gettin' arrested— what the hell were you thinkin', young man? Pickin' barfights— like you're old enough to be in no bar at all— and then pullin' a blade? There's much less painful suicide methods."_

 _"It's none of your business what I do, last I checked, an' I got up to worse in New York," Dallas shot back, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "Ain't you got enough of your own kids to worry about?"_

 _"Funny how it becomes my business, when I'm your ride out the station at one in the morning." Dad crossed his arms over his chest, giving him a look that brooked no disobedience. "When are you gonna get your shit together, Dallas? You keep this up, it won't be juvie no more, it'll be Big Mac. Or a casket six feet under."  
_

" _Live by the gun, die by the gun, right?" Dallas laughed, a drunk, unsteady laugh. "Remember that one?"_

 _"You think that mouth's impressin' me? The only person you're foolin' here is yourself." He got even closer to him, leaning forward on his elbow. "You're scared of how that fight could've gone down. Admit it."_

 _(Mom looked like she wanted to speak up, but she never got involved when Dad was laying down the law to the boys, and just kept aimlessly drying the dishes. I disdained her for it, a little; I'd reached the age where I looked at my mother and saw everything I didn't want to be.)_

 _Ignition took less than a second. "You ain't my fucking father!"_

 _"Call Norm, then, next time," Dad snapped, as Dallas slammed the door behind him and knocked my kindergarten finger painting off the wall. "See which one of us gives a damn about you."_

 _"Why couldn't you have let me handle this?" Mom finally sighed, biting down on her bottom lip. "For God's sake, Darrel, y'all are like fire and gasoline. He needs patience."_

 _"He needs his ass whooped," Dad said loud enough for Dallas to hear, his own temper lit up— the door opened and slammed again, then three more times for good measure. "Kid steals a couple of junkers, sells a baggie of grass, and thinks he's gonna be the toughest guy in the state pen— yeah, right. You know how hard it is to get a job with a felony record?" he added, raising his voice again. "You'll wish a shiv had done you in, once even the Piggly Wiggly sends you packin'."_

 _While Mom and Dad bickered, I wandered over to the porch, barefoot and still in my pajamas;_ _I expected Dally to have high-tailed it out of here by now, but he was slumped against the wall, too exhausted to move. The tip of his cigarette glowed bright, like the lightning bugs swarming around us. "Hell d'you want?" he asked, glaring at me with all of his fifteen-year-old fury; a huff of smoke wafted up to my nostrils, making me gag. "Ain't you got Barbies to play with or somethin'?"_

 _I didn't like Barbies— they resembled my white mother too much, with their light eyes and pale skin and long, blonde hair. I liked Dallas's little sneer, telling me to remember my place, even less. "You're such an asshole," I said, my hands on my hips. "Like Dad don't have enough problems already, with Darry."_

 _(Darry hadn't taken not being able to go to college very well. Let's just leave it at that.)_

 _"I never fuckin' asked to be your family's charity case, did I?" He sounded more sad than angry now, believe it or not. "You ain't my fuckin' sister, neither, so go piss up a rope."_

 _"It's long since time you was in bed, lil' lady," Dad drawled at me when he finally strolled out there, interrupting this touching chat. "Dally an' I got some unfinished business."_

 _"Awh, Daaaaad," I started, but still trudged back inside— he patted me on the head as I passed him, some of his earlier sternness abated._

 _"What am I gonna do with you, huh, kid?" He ran his hand through his hair the way Soda did, making his cowlicks stick up even more, and sighed deep enough to rattle the leaves of our magnolia tree. "You know James Dean died when he was twenty-four, right? Rebel Without a Cause ain't no instruction manual."_

 _"Yeah, well, dumbass couldn't drive," Dallas muttered though another mouthful of smoke. "I ain't got that problem."_

 _Dad's lips twitched ever-so-slightly upwards, in spite of himself— he'd been teaching Soda and Dally how to drive our ancient Ford pickup lately, and judging by the glass of whiskey he poured himself after every lesson, Dally treated the speed limit as a bare minimum. "You better put that damn cigarette out when I'm talkin' to you."_

 _Dallas scowled, and he took his sweet time, getting one last drag in. But he put it out._

* * *

"Jas... what was Dally talkin' about?"

"No idea," I said, picking yet another pair of dirty underwear up off the floor— my room was a sty, Darry preoccupied with more important things lately than making me and Ponyboy clean. I couldn't turn around to face him. "You know Dally, he's always tiltin' at windmills. Like Don Quixote."

Soda gave me a blank stare. "Don _who_?"

"Never mind," I said more firmly, wishing he'd just get out already, but he was in one of his determined moods— he sat right down on my bed and made himself comfortable.

"Don't bullshit me," he said, his tone more gentle than his words. "Darry couldn't defend you after what?"

"Ain't nothing happened." I turned away, hysteria bubbling up in me, and I knew I'd break down if I opened my mouth again. _Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened._

"I'm worried, Jas." Soda picked at a piece of dead skin on his bottom lip, peeling it away to reveal a crimson bead. "It's pretty fucked when Dallas knows more 'bout what's goin' on with you than your own brothers, you dig?"

It felt like a blood infection, festering in my veins and poisoning me from the inside-out, keeping this secret from them. Every day I hid it I got sicker and sicker, drawn more into all of Dallas and Angela's dark, like the dirty things I did with them might cancel out what Graham did to me. I ran and ran and ran, but the booze and the pills and the weed and the meaningless, endless rounds of sex with Dallas still didn't erase the thoughts from my head. I was still drowning.

He looked up at me with wide brown eyes, framed by lashes that were too long for a boy, and my heart splashed into my stomach. He'd always been my favorite brother. "Soda—"

"Y'all think Darry's gonna be gone for long?"

And there was Ponyboy in the doorway, and the brief bubble that had allowed me to tell the truth had popped, just leaving an awkward, sticky silence. "Don't get your hopes up, lil' bro," Soda drawled, "he'll go out for a drink and come back in a worse mood than usual. Leave them strippers outside."

"Can't believe you been hangin' out at Atomic Liquor, Jas," Ponyboy said. "Me an' Curly went down there once and that was enough—"

"You an' Curly did what now?" Soda said— he'd grown more and more comfortable putting sternness into his voice, and I wasn't so sure I liked it. "Thought I told you to stay away from so much as Buck's, much less _that_ joint."

"Awh, we were fine," Ponyboy said, but he stared down at his feet and fidgeted— he'd always taken Soda's disapproval harder than me. "Just bumped into some drunk cowboys, is all. We ain't kids no more."

"Plenty could've happened," Soda said, "so use your head before someone puts a bullet in it, _kid_." He pressed his finger against Pony's temple and shoved it in. "At least Jasmine was with Dally, he could've taken care of her, but I wouldn't trust no Shepard to watch so much as my bike for me."

They continued squabbling in the background, but even when they settled things with a wrestling match that knocked my lamp over, I couldn't break out of my dissociation, my vision sliding into that gray, familiar space where I felt and knew nothing. I was wrestling with my own demons, my own ghosts, a face smirking above me. Locked inside my head, no way out.

* * *

I hadn't expected the Shepards' front door to be unlocked; I knew from personal experience that there was far too much cash and paraphernalia stashed inside for that. I didn't discover why until I'd padded over to the kitchen, to find Tim pressed against the counter by two guys with gold cross necklaces and prison tattoos. Sweat was beading on his forehead, staining the armpits of his worn t-shirt, and I sensed it had nothing to do with the late summer heat.

"The hell you tryna pull?" Luis demanded, far too close to the knife block for my comfort. "Showin' up at Joe's with a couple baggies of black tar— tradin' in your wheels for Norm Winston's shit dope— Dallas been suckin' your dick or somethin'? That what you did this for?"

" _Compa_ , you just got played, and played bad," Alberto (was that his name?) swooped in with a little laugh. "You know that Winston kid gave you the shittiest bags of dope he could dig up, right? He's rolling 'round town right now in your damn truck, sellin' pure white, laughin' all the way to the bank. All 'cause you can't follow orders."

"I hafta do what's best for my outfit." Tim tilted his chin up defiantly. "Ain't good for my boys, you two fightin' with Joe, so you'd better settle it. We got enough problems with Brumly hornin' in on our territory without this."

"It's _your_ outfit now, huh, ain't got nothin' to do with us." Luis grabbed him hard enough to near yank his arm out of its socket; Tim let out a hiss of pain he couldn't manage to suppress. "I think someone's gettin' a little big for his britches, _sobrino_." He brought himself closer to his face, their noses almost touching. "The grass you sell? That comes from me. The car you _used_ to drive? That comes from me. The corners you tag? That comes from me too. Notice a pattern?"

"Go easy on him," Alberto said through a mouthful of chewing tobacco, "he's just a kid."

"A kid with a damn big mouth." Luis cocked his fist, making his bicep bulge out like a baseball. "Listen, Timmy, you need me to teach you a lesson, or is seein' that crazy-ass albino cruisin' around in your truck gonna be enough?"

Tim threw his head back and laughed. Hearing the sound for the second time wasn't any less unsettling. "Ain't my truck, just looks it— Diego from Tiber owed me a favor. It's got sugar in the engine."

And as suddenly as clouds lifting after a thunderstorm, all three of them started howling like hyenas and clapping each other on the back. "Oh, man," Luis said, clutching his stomach, "you know that ain't actually gonna tank it, right?"

Tim grinned. "Nah, but he'll have to pay at _least_ twenty bucks to a mechanic to get that shit dumped out, and explain the whole story. That'll teach him to fuck with a Ramirez."

"Maybe there's some hope for you yet," Luis said. "Listen, we need to have a meetin' with the whole crew, so can you kick out— fuck, what goddamn gringo is it now? Ed again?"

"He's been gone a few weeks now, and Ma's on a bender, we're clear," Tim said. "It's all good... tío."

The two of them paid me no mind as they noisily clattered out of the house, but Tim noticed me skulking in the corner right away. "I ain't sorry," he said simply, filling up a glass of water and gulping it down, never breaking eye contact. "Dallas sure has a lot of fuckin' nerve, draggin' his leader's sister into deals— I told Darry, he oughta keep tighter order in his crew. Any cocksucker in Shepard try takin' Angela out like that, I'd beat him with a baseball bat."

"It's cool," I said with the corners of my mouth turned down. I couldn't really pin it on him, what had happened. It was an explosion I'd felt brewing for a long, long time; Tim had just lit the short fuse.

"Do I scare you?"

Away from Dallas, in the light of day and not under the smoky cover of the bar, all I could do was nod.

"Well, Luis an' Alberto scare _me_ , and their friends are even worse," he said, shoving a couple of crumpled dollar bills into my hand. "Get Angel out of the house; go see a movie or somethin'. And don't bring her back 'til late." He clenched his jaw. "I don't need no gangbangers tryna stake a claim on her."

He didn't realize that she'd already had one staked on her, by the head of the Kings himself, did he? I wondered what it'd do to that alliance, already shaky, if I told him the truth, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything. Not when my own story was still lodged in my throat like a swallowed bone.

"Hey, girl," Angela said as I wandered over to her bedroom, which didn't look too different from mine; brightly painted walls, magazine clippings, even a Beatles poster hanging near her closet. She was doing her toenails red, her hand steady, and yet I still knew she'd heard every word from the kitchen. "You ever think of coming 'round with Pony sometime? He's the cute one in the family."

I pulled a face. "Darry's still gotta remind him to shower when he gets too greasy," I made sure to tell her, but that soppy expression didn't fade one bit. "He's my brother an' all, but you could do better, trust me."

"At least tell me you ain't here to take me to no movie." She flipped her hair back from her shoulder and gave me a bored, pouty look. "I already seen What's New Pussycat? at the Nightly Double three times."

"No," I said, rummaging around in my purse until my fingers wrapped around the handle of a switchblade. "We got a job to do."

* * *

This campus haunted me, this miserable fraternity house especially, with its permanent stink of cheap beer and cologne and used rubbers. I hadn't wanted to come here at all, deep inside King territory, but a masochistic part of me couldn't resist the chance. Like when I lost a tooth as a kid and had to keep prodding the bloody, empty space with my tongue, convince myself of the lack.

Over the past few months, his features had blurred in my memory, no matter how hard I tried to bring them back. But now that he was standing right there, I knew I'd recognize his face at the end of the world, in nuclear holocaust. Anywhere.

"Hey, Jasmine," Graham said.


	16. Cleaning Out My Closet

... Please don't read this chapter if sexual assault or suicidal ideation are triggers for you, for the love of God, 'cause shit's about to hit the fan. Or at least be careful, guys— I've tried not to make anything too graphic, but some of the content gets pretty intense.

And this is a bit shorter than my chapters usually are, but... at a certain point, I figured some stuff could be left to the imagination.

Title comes from the song by Angel Haze.

* * *

I'd come to kill him, I'd convinced myself. Even rehearsed the scenario in my head, on the long walk there. Pulling out the switch, my grip firm around the handle like Dallas had taught me in a few rushed lessons, and plunging it into his stomach— _not the chest, it'll get stuck in his ribs_ — watching his blood spurt hot and fast. Seeing that shocked panic in his eyes, like a cow in a slaughterhouse, before he bled out.

Lord, I'd entertained so many fantasies about what I'd do to him, say to him once I saw him again— as a stronger, more sober, better-looking version of myself. And now that I was here, with him right in front of me, I couldn't do any of those things I'd longed for. He saw the scared little girl I'd been before, and knew that beneath the petty rebellions I'd tried to transform myself with, the smoking and the drugging and the dealing, we were one and the same.

Graham smiled— not exactly warmly, the way you'd greet a distant relative— and wandered over from where he'd been sprawled on an old couch, joint in hand. "Ain't you all grown up now," he said, looking me up and down, his eyes finally landing somewhere south of my face. "That's a real pretty skirt, Jasmine."

"Y'all met before?" Angela asked in a voice that he no doubt interpreted as casual, but I could read her better— her shoulders had tensed, the muscles in her neck taut. After so many years of abuse, she'd no doubt learned to sniff out whether a guy was bad news like a bloodhound.

"Sure, we go way back," he said, running a hand through his hair to mess up what he'd slicked down with Brylcreem— I hated how it made me think of Soda, because my brother should have _nothing_ to do with him. He appeared smaller than he loomed large in my memory, but the rest of him was the same— the smattering of acne on his jawline, the narrow green eyes, the sloping forehead. "I remember all the notches on my bedpost."

He smirked at me, and to my horror, I let out a nervous laugh, one that I wanted to shove right back into my mouth. "We... met at a party. Few months ago. Yeah."

How could I say it? What the hell was I supposed to say on his turf, in broad daylight, while a couple of other fools in his frat fiddled with the busted keg near the vending machine?

"'Fraid Dally don't offer friend discounts." She batted her Maybelline-enhanced eyelashes and planted her small hand on his chest; I wanted to smack it away. "Yet. But maybe if you become a preferred customer..."

She was slithering around him, a python in her seduction, but for once the act had no effect; more suddenly than I could resist, he'd looped an arm around my waist, drawing me against him. "You carry around the weed in this operation, sweetheart?" he asked, his voice in my ear sending a prickly shiver down my left side. Amusement permeating every note, as though it was a cute joke, me dealing anything instead of leaving it to the boys.

 _There's a knife in your purse. Didn't you say you'd use it, if he ever touched you again?_

Paralyzed with numb, stupid fear, I remained exactly where he positioned me, even as the tips of his fingers brushed my breast; Angela stepped forward, brandishing the bag. "From south of the border, it's the good shit."

"Just like you, huh?" He took it from her and shoved a ten into her now-empty palm, in one quick motion. She was prettier than me, and whenever we were out selling, she was usually the one flirting with the customers to try to score a better deal. But he still didn't have any interest in her even with her tits in his face, pinning me with his eyes like a butterfly to a corkboard. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. "I wouldn't have pegged you as one of those girls— sellin' dope and everything. But I guess it makes sense. You got that look 'bout you."

"What look?" I dared to ask.

"You know." He'd dropped his gaze down to the grass, sifting through it to test the purity. "'Daddy didn't love me enough.' Guess that's my type."

* * *

 _Get up, I told myself, the rough sheets scratching my skin as I lay prone on the bed. Nothing felt real, my limbs swimming in front of me like a mirage. You have to get up. You have to you have to you have to._

 _But I couldn't._

 _He'd turned the TV on, some rerun of Gilligan's Island illuminating the two of us, fixing me against his chest with one arm. "So how old are you, really? You ain't eighteen."_

 _Between my legs was wet. I didn't want to think about with what. My throat ached every time I swallowed, like pressing down on a bruise. "Fourteen."_

 _"I was your first, huh?" Lazy, arrogant condescension dripped from his voice. "Figured you'd give it up eventually. All redskin girls are easy."_

 _Time didn't exist anymore. I'd done things. He'd done things to me. It was a drunk, demented haze, and the holes in my memory terrified me the most, as I'd faded in and out of consciousness and woken up to worse and worse scenes. I didn't understand what was happening— I didn't want to understand what was happening. I kept thinking he was my friend, it was a misunderstanding, he would go back to normal if I just played along. The slurpily-kissing couples in the bedrooms adjacent, could they hear what was going on in here? Did they care? Where had Sylvia gone— was she looking for me?_

 _I'd stared up at the ceiling near the end, lost inside my head as his hips snapped forward and back in an endless, nauseating rhythm. Waiting for him to finish, to finally just fucking finish. Please. Please be done now._

 _I wanted to put my clothes back on, but he kissed me again and then all I wanted was to vomit and vomit and vomit; he tried to run a hand through my hair, and it caught in the tangles, where he'd grabbed fistfuls and forced my head down. I was acutely conscious of being naked, the way he was still looking down at my body, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. "You liked it," he said as he finally let me go, daring me to disagree. "I know you did."_

 _He got up and stepped into his jeans, zipped his fly with a metallic clang; I shivered, feeling like a turkey with all of its feathers plucked, my skirt in a crumpled heap at the end of the bed and my blouse flung halfway across the room. Then he smiled, satisfied with a job well done._

 _"Where are you going?"_

 _I replayed this later like Pontius Pilate judging Jesus, alongside a dozen other questionable reels, deciding that it meant I'd secretly wanted it, wanted him. But I knew the truth, back in that moment. If he walked out now, left me bleeding and broken on the bed, it was rape._

 _He never turned around._

 _I wished I'd been in the backseat of my parents' truck._

* * *

The rum burned my esophagus, burned my stomach down to the core, and I coughed on the massive gulp I'd taken. Then I took another one.

"Notch on his bedpost, huh?" Angela guzzled that shit like it was water, not even pausing to take a breath. I wondered who she was trying to impress. "Thought you was more into blonds, if you catch my drift."

We were at the House of the Rising Sun, I dimly realized, sharing one of the miserable come-stained mattresses as we drowned our sorrows. How very... fitting. Havana Club, I read as Angela passed the bottle back to me, and I thought about Havana— though I'd heard on the news that it was some kind of Commie hellhole where no one had running water, I pictured the image emblazoned on the glass, a white sand beach with fucking palm trees, and put a hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh. God, wouldn't I rather be in _Havana_ right now than here.

Not that it'd cure me. No amount of tropical sunshine could ever cure me.

"He made me," I said, strangely calm, "he made me have sex with him." I wasn't there, not really, not anymore, and it had nothing to do with the alcohol. It was like I was telling a story that had happened to someone else, some other girl— it couldn't have possibly been me, or else how did my lungs still inflate, my heart still beat?

She nodded her head as I spoke, as though she'd expected nothing different. "You tell your brothers?"

"No," I whispered, rocking back and forth a little. I couldn't, I never could, it was an act of providence that Ponyboy had walked in before I'd shared my most shameful secret. I still remembered the way Darry had called me a two-dollar whore, spitting the words without a second thought, and he didn't even know the half of it. "Some things... you just don't talk about... it's too dirty. They'd never look at me the same way again."

If they even believed me at all.

"Tim don't know either," she said, and snatched the bottle from me with a rapid, nervous energy, her hands shaking. "He'd kill him, he'd be in prison for the rest of his life. I can't do that to him."

"Alliance is fallin' apart." I pointed my toes at the ceiling and lay back on the mattress. Any fool could figure that much out. "Maybe he'll kill Joe anyway, just your luck."

A worried furrow developed between her eyebrows, as her forehead scrunched up. "Then where would I get my fix?" she asked, deadly serious. "You think my damn tíos would hook me up? Get real."

"You're fourteen an' you're stuck on dope," I said with a laugh devoid of any mirth. I had no idea how Tim hadn't noticed the purple and blue track marks spangling her arms, the way her skin stretched drawn over her cheekbones. "You don't need no damn new hook up."

"Boozin' don't work," she said, still deep in her own dissociation, like she was informing me about the law of gravity. Then she threw the bottle against the wall as hard as she could, making a shattered mess of broken glass and a spreading puddle, just for the pleasure of watching it break; I was already drunk enough not to mourn the waste. "Only thing that's gonna make you forget is smack. That's why it's so fucking expensive."

She pulled out a baggie from underneath the mattress— there were probably piles stashed all over this place— and it didn't take her long to unearth a needle, either. "It's like magic, shit. You don't think about nothin'."

"It hurts," I said, my throat suddenly tight with suppressed sobs. Like I had anything to cry about, compared to Angela, but the urge was welling up in me strong and fierce. "Hurts so fucking much."

"Yeah. It does." She pulled out the syringe. "You want a hit or not?"

I couldn't live with it.

It didn't feel like me, when Angela wrapped a hairband around my arm as a makeshift tourniquet. It didn't feel like me, when the needle pricked, plunging deep inside my bloodstream. Then my head became molten gold, and—

* * *

 _Someone was sitting in our armchair as I slipped back into the house, tipping a bottle down his throat. The TV was on, but all it blared was static. He didn't move to turn it off._

 _"Daddy?"_

 _God, did I wish he was here. That he'd hold me in his strong arms, roped with muscle, until the bad dream faded from my memory— "ain't nothin' gonna get you, baby girl," he'd told me when I was little, "don't you think I'll scare them monsters away?"_

 _But if there was anything constant about my father, it was that he left. To the slammer, to all his union meetings that went nowhere, now to the grave. Never around when I needed him most._

 _Darry stumbled towards me like a baby just learning to walk, sloshing some of the whiskey down his wrist as he clumsily handled the bottle, and the pain was almost enough to make me curl up on the floor. It wasn't him I wanted, even if they looked near the same, except for the eyes. It wasn't him I wanted at all._

 _"Nah, sweetheart, he's dead in the ground, remember?" He laughed, an ugly, raw laugh. "You're stuck with me."_

 _My mascara was smeared all over my face, the sticky trails cracking as I opened my mouth. I'd started crying back at the fraternity, only stopping somewhere on the long way home, gathering the last vestiges of my courage. "Darry—"_

 _"I don't know how to do this." He rested his head in his hands, and I realized with a horrible jolt that he was crying too, as I saw his shoulders rise and fall. It was like seeing a stone bleed, something against nature. "I ain't old enough to be y'all's daddy, but there ain't no one else left. Uncle Gene's fucking crazy, he can barely take care of himself, and Grandma an' Grandpa Hall don't want nothin' to do with Mom's halfbreed kids."_

 _He downed the last of the Jack, letting it dry up his tears. He'd never reminded me of my father more._

 _"Darry," I said, the words jumping in my throat like Graham's cock had jumped in my hand. "Somethin' happened... somethin' bad..."_

 _"Yeah, you're tellin' me." He collapsed back into the armchair, all his bones gone to water, and swept a furious hand across his face. "We'll get through it, I guess. We don't have no other choice." He looked at me, for the first time, with clear eyes. "You're supposed to be in bed, ain't you?"_

 _I didn't sleep, all that night. I lay awake, clutching the stuffed rabbit I was getting too old for, listening to the mixed cacophony of traffic and my brothers' sobbing until the sun came up. And then I washed the mascara trails off and cooked breakfast (because that was my job now, the boys couldn't so much as fry an egg on their own without burning the house down), and pretended nothing had happened. That day, then for the next week of leftover funeral casserole and social worker visits, until it became second nature._

 _But the body remembers. The body always remembers, even when the mind wants to forget._

* * *

When I spasmed into full consciousness again, I found myself in my tub, hugging my knees; I didn't remember how I'd gotten there. The house felt eerily quiet; Darry had driven off in the morning, and since it was Saturday night and the warden was gone, Soda and Pony no doubt had more pressing obligations than babysitting me. I was alone, traversing a dark and dangerous wasteland; I'd come face to face with the devil himself and let him walk, and as punishment for my weakness, my cowardice, I would suffer for the rest of my life.

 _Did you like it, slut? Is that why you can never fight back?_

I swished my hand around in the already-lukewarm water. My fingers had pruned, and my skin bore the red, raised marks of a hard scrub; my hair hung in tangled ropes, dripping down my back. The bathroom mirror was steamed up too much for me to see my reflection anymore, a sight that repulsed me lately. Had I thought I could wash the sin off, some kind of second baptism?

A few weeks ago I'd sat in the same place, Soda bothering me on the toilet seat while I'd bitched about Darry's rules. I should've listened to them. God, I should've listened to them.

I burst into tears, my shoulders shaking with sobs I couldn't hold back any longer. I didn't like to cry over Graham, let him win, as though I'd get a damn prize for not allowing him to affect me. I was a tough girl, a cool girl, nothing much touched me, except it did. It did and I was fucked and ugly and a whore and I wanted to die. I wanted to die.

And then my eyes locked on Dad's old Gillette razor, the one Darry still used, and I thought about it.

It wasn't the first time, and more than most people, I knew just how fragile life was by now. I could stick another needle into my arm, mix too many pills with booze, drive a truck into a tree, hang a noose around my neck—

I reached over and cradled the razor with my thumb and forefinger. What difference was there, really, between my slow attempts at suicide and a fast one? Who would miss me, if I was gone? Their lives would keep on going. The world would keep on spinning.

But instead I drew it across my stomach, watching beads of blood come up dark and fast. I barely felt it, the sting that took my breath away as I broke my own skin and let it fall in trails. I felt nothing at all.

Even blood couldn't wash it away. I was filthy.


	17. Bad Blood

Darry took another two days to come home, which was a breathtaking amount of irresponsibility from a guy who yelled at us for eating in our rooms and forgetting to wipe our feet before we walked inside. Missed a whole day of work, too, which meant I had to intercept a furious phone call from his boss, saying this was the last time he hired redskins, they always took Friday drinking binges too far and fell off the roofs on Monday. I just listened to the whole thing in silence, clamped my tongue between my front teeth, and promised he'd be back tomorrow, yes sir. We couldn't afford for Darry to lose this job, not even with the cash my successful deals brought in.

(I'd started sleeping with rubber band bound stacks of dollar bills under my mattress, reminding myself that if I handed over too much at once, I'd blow the entire operation. It made my nights even less restful than usual.)

He clattered back in right around breakfast, looking like he hadn't slept since last Friday night, cradling a six-pack of beer in his arms; I immediately noticed the mottled patterns of bruises on his jaw, the scrapes on his knuckles. "Guess I only got myself to blame," he muttered as he peered into the empty frying pan. I hadn't bothered to cook for him. _Wasting food is a sin_ , Mom had drilled into my head, and especially when our finances were worse than ever.

"Where you been, huh?" The tips of Pony's ears had turned bright red, a color only he, out of all of us, could flush. "If we went for a joyride like that, you'd've called the damn cops on us by now—"

"I'm an adult." Darry threw a handful of aspirin into his mouth and chased it with a whole glass of water, not even bothering with a token scolding for cussing. "I don't have a curfew, last I checked."

He gave us a bright, brittle smile; the last time I'd seen that expression on his face, he'd been eighteen, pissed at Dad for not handing over a cent for him to go to college. He'd stumbled home with strange bruises then too, the same wild, daring look in his eyes— _yeah, I'm fucking myself up. The hell are you gonna do about it?_

I thought he'd outgrown that by now.

"Hey, the kid's got a point, Superman," Steve said, and I nearly swallowed my hash brown whole at hearing those words from _him_ , of all people. "I mean, I'll be damned if you don't deserve a night out, but we was worried. Social worker's comin' in a couple days, what were they s'pposed to say if you went AWOL?"

"You know what?" He slammed the beers down on the table and gave us a smile that would have looked better on the Joker. "Dally was right— I ain't nobody's daddy, and I ain't gonna be any time soon. So from now on, I'm _cool_ Darry. Y'all wanna get hammered? Get laid? Get arrested? Knock yourselves out, that's not my problem no more."

He strolled down the hall, whistling 'Ticket to Ride'; the shower gurgled awake a second later. "Well, if anyone misses some structure an' discipline," Steve drawled, "they can stop by my place. 'Least my old man sometimes loses his shit when I get hauled in and he's gotta haul me back out."

With both a depressing and mercenary amount of speed, I reached for the pack, but Pony grabbed me by the shoulder before I could fish a can out from the plastic webbing. "Hold up, it's probably a trap. He's gonna come right back in here and ground you for life, _mark_ my words."

"Shit, I think we broke him," Soda said. "Or at least Jas broke him."

"Y'all oughta be thankin' me— at least shut up before the genie quits handin' out wishes," I said, forcing joviality into my voice. "Ain't this what we wanted all along? Darry to quit treatin' us like little kids?"

Pony shot me a worried look, a shadow of doubt cast over his usually delicate features. For all of his bravado, all his endless attempts at proving otherwise, Pony needed Darry's structure— craved it, even. He was still just a kid, Mom and Dad's baby, too young to know how to handle himself without someone checking his homework and fussing about a balanced diet. And I was the intruder on their brotherhood, a cancerous outgrowth eating away at everything that was good and wholesome about our family, enough that Darry had given up any attempts at rehabilitating me.

Why Darry hadn't thrown down the gauntlet like he'd really wanted, said that Aunt Rose could take over wrangling me into a proper young lady, I didn't know. Maybe he was just too damn stubborn to admit defeat to her. Maybe it was one last thing he thought he owed to Mom and Dad, not breaking up the family any more than it already had been.

"I could kill Dally." Soda picked at the tips of his nails, already bitten to the quick, his one nervous habit. "Jasmine, I don't want you seein' him no more, I mean it. You ain't his kind of girl."

I cracked open a can of beer and drained it, putting one suntanned leg up on the table, never breaking eye contact. Soda looked away first.

* * *

Dallas usually gave it to me good and hard; maybe fucking didn't bring us closer together— maybe there was still a black hole deep inside me— but mechanically, he knew _just_ what he was doing, how to at least give me the hollow satisfaction of physical pleasure. Which is why I was so surprised when he recoiled from me like a spring about to go off, before we even started. "What's the matter?" I asked, running my hand down his bicep, trying to reel him back in.

His eyes were locked on the patch of injection, the ugly purple and blue watercolor forming across my skin; god fucking dammit, I should've thought ahead, covered it up with foundation before he could so much as catch a glimpse of it. "You shootin' up now?"

"Just the once." I pulled my knees up to my chest, sliding away from him on the mattress. "What's the big deal?"

A cold fury came down on his face; despite his terrifying reputation, I'd never really feared him before, not until he'd tugged me closer by the arm to examine the crook of my elbow. "Angela give you this shit?" he said in a low rasp. "I'm gonna fucking kill her."

"Leave her out of this, it was my idea," I lied. "Like you've never done it before, you hypocrite."

"Which means when your brother sees this, you know who he's gonna blame? Not you. Me." He released me from his vise-like grip and started pacing around in his underwear, his erection wilting. "It was Angela, I ain't retarded. Where the hell were you?"

"House of the Rising Sun... _Dad_."

"The House of the Rising Sun," he said in a mocking echo, shaking his head like a wet dog. "You got any idea what could've happened to you, all strung out on dope at that place? A fucking brothel?"

"Oh, I think I got one," I bit out, sitting down on my hands to restrain myself from decking him, but he was too caught up in the sound of his own voice to pay attention.

"I never should've let you into this." He grabbed his shirt from the floor and pulled it over his head, his eyes freezing me solid like two chunks of Arctic ice. "Why the hell did you do it? You get bored, nothin' good on TV?"

"I saw my rapist." The words were marbles in my mouth, spilling out in an ugly, messy pile, as I put my own clothes back on. I regretted them the moment I said them.

"So who is it?" he asked softly. Maybe even kindly, but I heard the thrumming undertones of bloodlust in his voice. "You never did tell me."

"I'm not gonna, so don't count on it." Angela's words were swimming around my psyche— he'd be in prison for the rest of his life, a man like Dallas, who didn't ever need an excuse for violence. "Thanks for almost lettin' Darry in on the secret, by the way, I really appreciated that. Stay outta my business."

"You _are_ my business." He yanked his jeans back onto his legs. "You better cut this shit out, you hear? Nothing's gonna change the past, 'specially not dope."

"Ain't you one to lecture me." I strode over to my vanity and started to brush my hair back out, long, vicious strokes, to avoid his laser glare. "You can't even fuck me sober, you can't even _talk_ about it—"

"You want me to talk about it, princess?" he said slowly. "You want me to talk about bein' twelve, and the youngest kid in the entire cell block, and how the CO's knew they could shove a dick in your mouth and get you on your knees?" His face was glazed blank, like someone had swiped their thumb over an indent in clay. "You're gonna be waitin' a long fucking time."

He left without noticing the gash I'd carved into my stomach, at least.

* * *

My fight with Dallas had left me in a dangerous mood, nervous energy fizzling inside of me and prickling my skull, the tips of my fingers. Smoking three cigarettes in rapid succession, downing another beer, and blaring my Yardbirds records at ear-shattering volumes wasn't even enough to get rid of it; my leg bounced manically as I sat on the edge of my bed, trapped within the four walls of my tiny room. I felt galvanized by what I'd survived, hard and untouchable. I wanted to fuck some shit up.

But I didn't want to see Angela or Dallas, that was the trouble, which was how I ended up at Evie Smith's house.

Hers had the strangely incongruous look of an early evening party; less frenzied than one held at night, more people flung on chairs and beatdown couches, bathed in sinking sunlight as they guzzled down beer or whatever punch Evie's kid brother had cooked up. Despite the image she wanted to project, enough rouge to make a whore blush and a skirt that showed the lace of her panties, she wasn't any kind of party girl; she hovered close to the basement wall, huffing on a dark, unfamiliar joint and watching the crowd with wary doe-eyes. The last time I'd seen her, maybe in March or April, Steve was spitting blood from his split lip at the fuzz and twirling around like a drunk acrobat to dodge handcuffs, finally busted for grand theft auto, while she stood there as thick black streaks of mascara mingled with snot down her face; not an unusual scene in our neighborhood. She used to hang with me and Sylvia some, one of Sylvia's many satellites, but then Steve became her steady. That was just how things went.

I was kind of lit by then, to tell you the truth; I'd become less and less capable of coping sober, shaking out the bad thoughts like I shook scorpions out of my shoes. "Where's Steve?" I asked loudly, leaning against the wall to steady myself. "You figure you're too pretty for him yet?"

"Here," she said, "it's hashish, it's better than grass." I took an obliging huff, matching her easy grin as I blew out the smoke. "I'd ask the same. but you're prob'ly bored stupid havin' to talk about Dally by now."

"Damn straight." I had a plethora of excuses to feed her, but suddenly they seemed to no longer matter; she wasn't interested anyway. "We just had our first lovers' tiff. Thought I'd come down here and cool off."

She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear and gave me a look of the deepest commiseration. "I'm done with Steve, I swear, if he don't get his act together already. He's on probation, the dumbass, and what's he doin'? Meetin' up with Soda and stealin' hubcaps for Tiber." She flicked her lighter just to see the flame. "If he goes inside, it's over for good, an' you hold me to that. I'm not gonna wait around five years like my mama did and get tossed for a cuter model."

I held up a hand to stop her, my stomach flipping over like the time Pony pushed me off the garage roof when we were kids. "Wait a minute. Did you say with _Soda_? For Tiber?"

"Is that Sandy?" Evie asked instead of answering me, squinting at a poorly-lit corner of the room, festooned with balloons. "With— oh my God, she can't be serious."

With some other man (less handsome than Soda, family pride led me to think) sticking his tongue in her ear, and judging by the way she was grinding her ass into his crotch, it wasn't unwelcome, either.

"Hey, _trick_ ," I called out, my footfalls heavy and purposeful as I strode over to her, "the hell you think you're doin'?"

She just stared at me, her eyes glassy and blue like a dead fish's, and took a cigarette out from behind her ear; meanwhile, the lucky fellow ambled away, obviously not wanting to get involved in a catfight. "Dom's my cousin."

"Didn't realize you was from _way_ down south," I said with a nasty snort. "Only girl in Florida who's still a virgin is one who can outrun her brothers, huh?"

"Fine, you caught me," she said, all languid, careless movements as she lit up; when she was at home with us, she was always too much of a lady to smoke. I could see how both Ponyboy and Soda had been ensnared by her, teeth straight without braces and lips pink without gloss. "But if you had to listen to all of Soda's talk 'bout how much he wants a white picket fence and two point five children, you'd understand, trust me. It's downright creepy."

The worst part was, I _did_ understand her point— I'd even made it myself— but I wasn't about to give her any quarter. "So instead of tellin' him as much yourself, you're gonna mess around behind his back. That's real classy."

She straightened her headband; _Dom_ had knocked it to the side. "Go ahead an' tell him. Who's he's gonna believe, me or you?"

"His sister, or some broad he's been fucking for six months." I rubbed my chin between my fingers. "Really makes you think."

I expected her to slap me, the way we girls usually handled things on the East Side, and prepared to yank my earrings out before shit really got heated. But of course her royal highness was too good for that. "Soda talks about you a lot." She looked up at me through her eyelashes, a look she no doubt thought alluring, disarming. "You're his favorite, you know."

"Pony's his favorite."

"Nah, hon, it's you." Heat rose up along my cheekbones at the condescending way she called me 'hon', like she wasn't just a couple years older than me. "You stole your best friend's man, rumor has it." She cradled her cigarette between her middle and index fingers. "And that's not the only thing I heard you've been doin', _pusher_."

Rage swelled up in me like a burst pipe. "Bitch—"

"Lay off her." Sylvia entered the scene in a rustle of Nectaroma, Johnny hot on her heels, and I'd never been more grateful to see her in my life. "I saw that, the whole damn party saw it, so keep your trap shut unless you wanna ruin the last shred of your reputation."

Sandy blushed— she even managed to do that prettily, damn her— and with a few under the breath mumbles about trailer trash whores, flounced off to her side piece. "That slut's fuckin' around on Soda?" Sylvia arched a perfectly-sculpted eyebrow, a hand on her hip. "Knew that peaches an' cream act was too good to be true."

"Yeah." I'd already forgotten that as soon as a few weeks ago, he'd been as good as her brother too; how many afternoons had we spent down at the DX when he was on a shift, blowing straw wrappers at him and trying to lift copies of Cosmo without him noticing? The memory made a choked lump rise up in my throat, and I turned away from her. "Guess we was wrong, she didn't wait to get a hold of my mama's engagement ring before showin' her true colors."

We were both perched on the edge of a shared laugh— Sandy was far from the first of our brothers' girlfriends we'd mocked together— but enough tension still remained between us to strangle it. "See you 'round, I s'ppose," Sylvia muttered, breaking the spell, and went back up the stairs as fast as she'd come down.

Johnny stayed behind, though, even grabbed me by the elbow. "Tell Dally that I'm... I'm his man." He took a deep breath, yanking his diaphragm in, and straightened his shoulders as he let it out; it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what Dally had roped him into. "Whatever he needs me to do. I just... I gotta be careful not to get a record with the fuzz, you know? We have it worse than anyone else."

"Yeah, I know." I didn't clarify what he'd said out— Johnny didn't like being called Indian much— but I clasped his arm briefly. "Sometimes I think you're the only one Dally really cares about," I added in an uneasy exhale. "He needs you."

I was jealous of Dallas's obvious favor, the way Johnny could elicit a small, sharp-toothed smile from him or a hair ruffle, and I'd often wondered what the hell it was about this timid kid that made Dallas, who respected nothing but strength, so enamored with him. Now his dark eyes looked quick and ugly, reminding me of a half-tamed animal about to bite, and I stopped wondering.

* * *

Under the fluorescent lights illuminating my holding cell, maybe headed for prison, I was surprisingly sanguine about my fate.

"We're fucked," Angela said from next to me on the bench. "No, seriously. We're fucked." She gave one of the legs a hard kick, looking wan and frightened. "Goddamn, Tim's gonna _kill_ me when he finds out about this. We never should've cruised down to the North Side after dark— it's crawlin' with pigs."

At least we hadn't been with Dallas when we'd gotten picked up— with his priors, his smart mouth, and his longtime neglect of his PO, he would've earned himself a one-way ticket to Big Mac and dragged us along with him. But the fuzz were bright enough to figure out that we hadn't devised the idea of toting around bags of weed all on our lonesome. "Just tell us who put you up to this, sweetheart," the 'good' cop had said to me, an oily smile playing on his lips. "Young girl like you shouldn't be hanging 'round bad neighborhoods like that, gettin' into trouble. Just tell us what happened and we'll let you go."

Years of harsh experience had taught me better.

 _It wasn't the first time some white broad from the right side of the tracks had called the cops on my daddy for grocery shopping while Indian, but this officer seemed to take an especial delight in toying with him, his hand precariously close to the gun dangling from his belt. "They're both my kids," Daddy tried to explain, pulling me against his side with one arm, Pony with the other. "Got the birth certificates to prove it."_

 _His mouth slid into a condescending sneer, the kind I'd seen on members of the PTA when they'd figured out who my mama was married to. "Okay, maybe the lil' squaw's yours. I'll buy it. But the other one? Think your wife might've been screwin' the milkman, buddy."_

 _Daddy's jaw clenched so hard, I was afraid he'd break his teeth into tiny shards. If any guy from our side of town had dared call me a 'lil' squaw', or suggested that Mama was messing around on him, he would've laid them out before they had a chance to take it back. But he knew the score when it came to dealing with white men and not leaving the scene in a body bag, and so I watched my 6'3 mountain of a father collapse in an instant, unable to look away from the wreck. He bowed his head and called him sir._

 _Later that night, he came to tuck me in instead of Mama, smoothing the covers over me again and again. "Listen to me, baby girl," he said, a deep groove etched in his forehead. "I want you to remember somethin' from today, somethin' real important. 'Cause Ponyboy coulda just stepped off the Mayflower, but you took after me an' your Nana Liluye, and you're gonna see a lot more of this."_

 _He tilted my chin up with his thumb, making me look into his dark brown eyes, the ones mirrored on my face. "The fuzz ain't your fucking friends."_

 _(_ When I let myself think about Dad lately, I limited it to the hard-drinking, reckless man he'd been before he did his last prison term, hazy memories of midnight ice cream parties and when he vanished for days at a time all mixed up. The one I remembered best would have nothing pleasant to say about the path I was cruising down now.)

I was playing Russian roulette and I'd finally hit the chamber with the bullet; I had anticipated this day, and now I saw through the situation as as if it were a clear pool, sifting through my options like they were pebbles gathered on the bottom. I needed to be bailed out, and bailed out fast, which left me with two guardians. There was my brother, but quite frankly, I didn't trust that 'cool Darry' act to survive beyond a week, much less my arrest for possession. More like he'd make good on that long-standing threat to whoop my ass into 1966.

No, as much as I loathed the prospect, only one person could make this lapse of judgement _go away._ Angela's face, frozen with fear, finally tipped the scale— I was so used to her being the more confident of us two, hiding her insecurities behind a mask of flirtation and audacity, that seeing her duck her head so I wouldn't see her blink back tears was more than I could handle.

"Calm down," I said, the quarter I'd been given warm and heavy between my fingers— goddamn, was I not looking forward to this little talk. "I'm gettin' us out of here."

* * *

The first words out of Rose's mouth: "You're just like your father."

I could've told her that myself.


	18. Disobedience

"I can explain," I said after we'd dropped Angela off, my voice tinny and strange to my own ears, like hearing yourself on tape. "We were in the wrong place at the wrong time—"

"Why don't you just assume I wasn't born yesterday, and spare me all those lies drippin' out your mouth."

I pressed my head into the back of her chintz couch and groaned, an ache starting to build in my temples as all the beer I'd drank caught up to me. "Don't tell Darry, _please_. He's got enough to worry 'bout without this."

"I wasn't planning on it." She smoothed down the front of her cashmere sweater. "He obviously can't control you at all— you're runnin' wild. You need a mother in your life."

"You ain't my fucking mother."

The back of her hand collided with my mouth, faster than I could duck; it was a feeble blow, compared to others I'd received, but it still stung with an uneasy whine. "Bitch—"

She slapped me again, on the cheek, before I could recover from the first one. "I hope that don't bruise, for your sake," I unwisely said, my ears ringing. "Won't that just really help your case."

"You should be thankin' me on your knees," she hissed, pacing in front of me now. "'Cause if it wasn't for me givin' the police a _hefty_ bribe to let you loose, you'd be on your way to juvenile detention right now, and that little slag you were with too. Instead, you got a mouth like a busted sewer— I'm done with this, you hear me? I'm done."

It was like watching a previously placid squirrel get a hit of methamphetamine. "... Worse than my damn brother, even," I snapped back into her saying, once I'd gotten all the mileage I could out of that memory. "A man I can understand, but a young girl like you, runnin' around all over creation, drugs in her pocket— you're never gonna be able to find a better husband than that hood boyfriend of yours, lookin' after all his children when he's in the pen. Is that what you want?"

"What the hell do you know about who my daddy was, anyway?" I scoffed, bringing my fist down on my knee, hard enough to sting. Where did she get off, passing judgement— did she think Miss Edwards's breathless accounts of what a bad, bad man he'd been constituted the truth? "You never even _met_ him."

(Maybe the real root of my defensiveness was that the fate she'd described, kids hanging off my apron strings while my man paced around his 6 by 8, was exactly the one Mom had been forced into.)

"Of course I met him."

The fist stopped mid-swing, on its way to colliding with my thigh, and fell limply to my side. "You think you know everything, don't you?" she continued with a nasal snort. "He met your mama in Lubbock, that's where I grew up, you really figured that was just a coincidence? He came there to find our daddy."

I blinked at her, dumbfounded. "You ever... consider sharin' this lil' detail with any of us? 'Cause, see, we were under the impression that you were a long-lost sister Miz Edwards had dug up, not a sister Dad just plain forgot about."

"I didn't see the point," she said sharply. "We weren't close; I was _eleven_ when he left for Tulsa, Christ. I didn't have a lot of good memories to share."

"God. You didn't even go to your own brother's funeral."

"He knocked your mother up and ruined her life, made her lose her entire family." Her voice was like the scrape of a fork against teeth, all metal and sharp. "Even Eugene thinks as much, with all the time he spends smokin' peyote on the rez. He was too drunk to hold down any job that wasn't sellin' drugs." She got quieter, more conspiratorial, forcing me to strain my ears to understand what she was saying. "He stole money from my mother, you know. To fund his habit. Thought he was owed as much. Are you really surprised I didn't want to stay in touch?"

A loud snort came out of my lungs, followed by another that bent me over, though it wasn't particularly funny. "It's kind of impressive, how you managed to work every last stereotype 'bout Indians into that bullshit. Next time, tell me he opened his own casino chain down there."

"You really expect me to believe he was Father of the Year?" She stared me down with pale, bulging eyes, her veins straining out of her neck. "He never drank too much? Brought drugs home with him? Went to prison?"

"He _changed_ ," I snarled, but my voice hitched on the words and gave them less power than I'd intended. "Sorry everybody can't be as _perfect_ as you, Aunt Rose, but lemme guess the truth here. You didn't want your lily-white husband to find out there was a dirty branch on the family tree, did you? That you had a halfbreed brother?"

She raised her hand again, her wrist cocked and her fingers pressed together, and I prepared to fight back this time, but then she leveled me with an even worse blow. "I'm takin' you back to Texas with me. This environment isn't doin' you any favors, surrounded by all these common delinquents—"

"... What d'you think's gonna happen?" I rose to my feet, incandescent with rage, barely conscious of my words; my blood pulsed in my ears, dizzying me. "You'll haul me home to Lubbock, you'll get back together with your man, grab lil' Kevin, and we'll have a white picket fence and a puppy?"

"Somethin' like that."

"I will make your life a living hell," I said, ripping up a handful of threads from the couch cushion to bolster my threat. "You think I'm bad now?"

When she just raised one eyebrow above the other, I kept going. "I'll run away, I'll rough my own face up, I'll say that husband of yours is crawlin' between the sheets with me—"

"Then what?"

She had a simple, serene look on her face, like I'd seen on statues of the Buddha. "The state isn't going to just give you back to your brother, and if they think you're a flight risk, it won't be a foster family either," she said. "They'll put you in a girls' home until you're eighteen, and somehow I doubt you'd prefer that."

I'd heard that an impending sense of doom heralded heart attacks; that was the way I felt as I sank back down into the couch, realizing just how badly I'd miscalculated tonight. How much I'd still had left to lose.

"Honey, I shouldn't have hit you." She prodded the edge of the red spot with an almost maternal tenderness. "Honey, come on, now. You deserve to grow up in a real home— with a mother and a father. And you'll have a new little brother to play with. Kevin's going to just _adore_ havin' a big sister."

She kept droning on about opportunities Darry could never give me— private high school, some ladies' college where I could get my MRS, tennis lessons, being primped and polished into the role of a doll on the shelf for her— but all I could think of was my grandmother Liluye, the only time I'd ever met her as a small child. _Shoodii ts'iyiiltsego da'ya'dee ntoo'e ts'idiits'e doodago ntoo'e'ii_ , she'd told me as I sat on her lap, smelling of anise and cigarette smoke, my face caught between her gnarled hands. Beware of coyotes. Tricksters.

* * *

"Miss Curtis... I must admit, I expected better from you."

That was his first mistake.

"I don't understand what _happened_ ," the principal went on, leafing through my file like it contained toxic waste. "Last year you were a straight-A student, few absences, no behavioral problems... you peer tutored, for heaven's sake. Now you're skippin' school more often than you're in it and your grades have tanked. Just what do you have to say for yourself, young lady?"

"Now, Mr. Jones, we do have to make allowances." Miss Ambrose— the guidance counselor, better suited to handing out college brochures than doling out hard discipline— pushed her oversized glasses back up her nose. "There have been a lot of changes for Jasmine in the past year. Would you like a caramel, hon?" She shook the tin at me.

I took two and popped them into my mouth. "You can say my parents died. I won't burst into flames."

"Young _lady_ —"

"Jasmine, we're trying to help here as best we can." She gave me a tight, forced smile, holding up a hand to stop the angry tirade heading my way. "We're worried that you might be goin' down the same path as your brother Sodapop— which was such a shame, he really had a unique mind, so much potential." Soda had put down the wrong zip code on the form when he dropped out. "Why can't you take a leaf out of Darry's book? He was a star student, wonderful athlete, Boy of the Year—"

"When I called Darrel to talk about this fine mess, he told me... ahem, excuse my language, that it 'wasn't his damn problem anymore.'" He coughed pointedly, sweat gleaming on the top of his bald head. "Don't know what happened to give him that kind of attitude problem— but your brother Ponyboy, that's an example for you to follow. He's doin' real good in all his classes, and he's on the A team in track, too, I heard. Not out causin' trouble."

"I think it's interesting that these disciplinary problems only began when Jasmine became involved with tutorin' Angela Shepard," Miss Ambrose piped in. "I can't deny that Angela's grades have certainly improved from where she was at Fillmore Junior High and Saint Catherine's... but at what cost?"

"I'm sorry, sir." I picked at my nails, sending flecks of dark purple polish fluttering to the ground. _God, please let me hit the right combination of words for him to cut me loose._ "I'll try to do better."

Mr. Jones studied me with his beady eyes. "It ain't tryin' that counts, I'm afraid, it's what you end up doin'— I'm going to have to mention all this to your social worker. For now, I want you to stay away from Angela Shepard, for Chrissakes. She's clearly become a bad influence on you, lil' miss."

Despite the sheer amount of extracurricular activities we did together, I'd never spent a lot of time socializing with Angela in school— we were in separate grades, and she had her own group of girlfriends, who followed after her like baby ducklings tailing their mama. When I stepped into the bathroom adjacent to the office, they were flanking her protectively as she reapplied her complicated eyeliner wings. Her hand slipped as she watched me walk in, an ugly black streak spread out to her temple; cussing, she turned around to me, splaying her palms on the sink. "Hey, Jas," she said with impressive casualness, "how you been?"

"Got read the riot act by Mr. J," I said, rifling through my purse for my lip gloss. "He says you're a bad influence. Imagine that."

Angela changed faces like other girls changed underwear. This alpha female was a world away from the tough, jaded persona she wore around me, the airheaded tease she performed on the men she was trying to scam, and the bratty kid sister she was around Curly and Tim. I wondered which one wasn't a facsimile— if even she knew the answer to that. "This is Sally—" she pointed at the one with the luminous blonde ponytail "— and this is Patty," she said about the one with too much drugstore blush on. Both made no attempt to be subtle about looking me up and down, expressions that wouldn't be out of place on a pair of Soc girls, if Soc girls shortened their skirts with safety pins.

"I'd mess myself if I had Jones goin' off on me," Sally said, with what I liked to imagine was a hint of admiration. "VP's one thing, but he'll paddle you first an' ask questions later."

"I'm prob'ly movin' to Lubbock soon." I squinted in the cracked mirror as I slicked on another coating of lip gloss; I looked sullen and washed out in the harsh light, the lines of my face more sharply drawn than ever. "With my aunt. So it don't really matter what he got to say 'bout me."

"Ain't that where Buddy Holly was born?" Patty rubbed her eye, leaving a smudge of mascara underneath.

I shrugged.

Gratitude wasn't integrated that well into Angela's DNA, but she looked at me almost shyly, her gaze darting back down to the grimy tiles on the floor. "We're gonna go smoke behind the bleachers," she said with a toss of her long hair. "You can come if you want."

 _No thanks_ , I wanted to tell her, _I'm a little old to be getting those kicks with girls barely out of junior high,_ but I had nowhere to go but forward anymore. That was the path I'd chosen, the inevitable conclusion. "Sure."

* * *

Arriving in style with Tim's old truck, Dallas showed to pick me up after school, skidding to such an abrupt stop at the curb I swore I saw sparks. "Get in," he barked, and I'd barely thrown myself into the passenger seat before he hit the gas and damn near flew out of the Will Rogers parking lot.

"What the hell happened last night." It wasn't a question, the way he spat the phrase out like a piece of rotten meat. "I got ten separate greasy hoods on my ass, including both of Shepard's uncles, about the sting on the North Side—"

"We got picked up, obviously." I didn't like the defensive tone my voice carried, the way he'd backed me into a corner with that immediate attack— I needed to get an offense together, and fast. "You're the one who decided on cruisin' down there, last I checked—"

"Guess your rich-ass aunt paid the fuzz to look the other way, but you got no idea how fucking lucky you are." He slammed on the gas pedal again, breaking the speed limit by a good thirty miles, but I refused to show any fear; if he was trying to scare me, get me to beg him to slow down, he had another thing coming. "You know how long the sentence could've been, if they'd charged with intent to distribute? Five years."

"Yes, Dallas, I _do_ know, you ain't the only one whose daddy sold drugs," I snapped, sticking a foot up on his dash just to annoy him. "And I had a damn long night, so if you don't mind—"

"Did you talk?" He took his eyes off the road to bore holes straight through me, as well as almost ram us into the highway divider. "If you said one fuckin' word— I'm on parole. My name gets mixed up in this, I go back inside, and then it's game over."

"Like you ain't been associatin' with known felons, boozin' it up, and sneakin' around long past that seven o'clock curfew they set you, without my help."

He curled his lip. "You been actin' like a real cunt lately, anyone tell you that?"

I unbuckled my seatbelt, my fingers curling around the door handle in the next second— he grabbed my arm hard enough to near dislocate my shoulder, yanking me back, and pulled the car over so sharply it knocked the breath out of my lungs.

"You crazy ass bitch." He slammed his fist down on the steering wheel, firing off the horn. "The hell were you gonna do, jump out onto the highway? You would've broken your damn neck."

"Better than listenin' to you talk."

"I ain't never hit no broad," he said in short, clipped syllables. "But between you an' me, you're really pushin' it."

"Go ahead," I said, putting my hands up and staring him down. "Take your shot. Let's see what's left of you after my brothers find out."

I almost expected him to do it— you just didn't run your mouth off to Dally like that. I'd seen him pull a guy out of his car and pound him for cutting him off in traffic. But instead, he threw his head back and laughed that harsh laugh of his, unsettling in its similarity to Tim's. "Man, usually when I threaten to whale on someone, they start beggin' me to reconsider. You got bigger balls than half of Brumly."

"I'm still mad at you," I said, turning away from him with my arms crossed under my breasts, as he went in for a kiss. "Like you got a leg to stand on here. You wouldn't _be_ on parole if you hadn't gone inside in the first place."

"Maybe this'll change your mind." He pulled out his class ring from inside the console, which he'd hung from a silver chain that he must've stolen, it was too nice for him to be able to afford on his own.

My hands hovered around the clasp of the necklace I always wore since the accident, Mom's old one, that Dad claimed (with an exaggerated wink) he'd killed a man for. If I'd objected, considering how close Mom and Dally had been, he wouldn't have said another word about it. But the fact that he was willing to put this symbol around my throat meant that I was more than just a fuck to him— and I was insecure enough to value that.

(Did I really think after the things that I'd done, I could put my head in my mother's lap and be forgiven?)

I pulled it off and slipped it inside my purse, then swept my hair over one shoulder so that Dallas could put his chain on; his hands were surprisingly clammy at the nape of my neck, sending a shiver down to the very base of my spine. "It looks good on you," he said. "Better than it did on Sylvia."

"Let's go get hammered," I said, cranking up the volume on the radio so I didn't have to hear myself think anymore. "Forget about all this shit."

"Now you're speakin' my language."

* * *

Dallas drove me home later that afternoon, once I was more than tipsy, but I span right around on my heel and never bothered to go inside. Ponyboy would be back from track practice by now, registered in some part of my blurred brain. I didn't want him to see me like this anymore.

The sun blinded me, the world a dizzying kaleidoscope as I roamed streets I'd known my entire life; I found it hard to remember where I was, where I'd planned on going, the heat searing through my skull and erasing any sense of navigation I'd once had. _Step on a crack, break your mama's back_ ; I counted my unsteady footfalls one by one as I sank into the gooey tar, shimmering waves refracting off the sidewalk. Maybe I could plummet deep into the center of the earth, that burning place so much like Hell, and never resurface again. Maybe then it would be quiet.

A blast of freezing AC struck me as I opened the jingling door of the drugstore, making me shiver with relief. Then I noticed Curly sipping a coke at the counter; for once, away from his posse of fifteen and sixteen-year-old boys, gangly kids with too much baby fat on their cheeks to be more than junior members of the Shepard gang. Nor did he have a less-than-stable girl hanging off his arm, the only kind that ever smiled at him— he kicked the legs of the stool, looking more vulnerable and alone than his hulking brother ever could.

"What are you doin' here?" I asked, my voice too quavering from the booze to sound as harsh and flat as I'd intended. Against my better judgement, I propelled myself to the creaky vinyl seat next to him.

"You want some?" he said instead of answering me, nearly poking my eye out with his straw.

I took the sweating bottle from his hands and sipped it— all I could taste was sugar and fizz on my tongue, none of the cloying heaviness of rum or whiskey. "You slip _anything_ in this?"

"Shit, girl..." He sucked his teeth at me with a loud pop. "It's five o'clock... on a Wednesday. No."

"Right." I couldn't believe I felt embarrassed about my drinking habits around _Curly_ , but I still ducked my head. This was like the time Sylvia had invited me and Evie over for mimosas, back in February or March, and she'd had to hold my hair for me as I spewed orange-flavored vomit into her toilet. "I got picked up last night," I added, my tongue loose enough to spill a secret I no longer cared to keep. "For possession."

"Yeah, I know." He picked at the edges of a hole in his worn sneakers, big enough to show a couple of his toes. "Angel was real upset last night, cryin' even. Begged me not to tell Tim."

"She was _cryin'_?" That was like trying to imagine a stone bleeding— she hadn't even cried when she told me about her stepdaddy pimping her out, for Chrissakes— but if I strained my memory, her eyes had been strangely glossy back in the holding cell, and not just from the fluorescent lights.

He gave me a quizzical look. "Weren't you _there_? They was tryna slap her with a solicitation charge, 'cause she had some skimpy lil' skirt on." His gaze darkened, like a storm had come down on his face. "One of them pigs said dirty shit, scared the hell out of her. I could kill him."

"Nothing's gonna happen to her," I said, blood sloshing around in my skull and casting a staticky pall over my vision. "I called my aunt, she bribed the fuzz to look the other way. They didn't press no charges."

"Thank you," he said, more than a little stiffly. "For gettin' her out. She's just fourteen, she don't need no record yet."

"Don't worry 'bout it." I peeled pieces of leather off the worn seat and pointedly ignored the glare from the waitress. "She's my friend. I wouldn't have just skipped off without her."

It was the first time I'd ever referred to Angela as my friend. It didn't feel nearly as wrong as I'd expected it to.

He bit down hard on his chapped lip, staring at an ant crawling out of a crack in the linoleum floor. "Shouldn't have told all my buddies that we hooked up," he muttered, and then he became unintelligibly quiet.

"What?"

"You were my first, okay?" If his face got any redder, you could put him in an intersection and use him as a stop sign. "That's why I wanted to tell everyone."

First I cackled. "So I was right. My snatch _was_ the first one you ever saw up close." Then I paused. "Wait a hot minute. Ain't you bagged Christine Daniels? And Susan Lee? And—"

He fiddled with the slicked-down curls at the base of his neck, setting them free from their greasy prison. "Tíos been on my case 'cause Tim got tail when he was thirteen, callin' me a fag, you know? I lied. But you were my first." He sounded almost shy, more sensitive than I imagined any Shepard could be. "I wasn't... _yours_ , was I?"

The back of my throat burned, my skin feeling too tightly stretched over my bones; I couldn't look away from him, the patterns in his dark blue eyes like flares of fire coming off the sun. "Yeah. You were."

He leaned up against my shoulder and kissed the side of my neck, suckling ever-so-slightly. "What are you doin'?" I whispered; I inhaled the smell of him, spilled bourbon mixed with the detergent his mama washed his t-shirts with, and stared down the edge of a precipice.

"Somethin' bad," he said, and kissed me again, cupping the side of my head to pull me closer. His mouth tasted like sugary saliva. Like sin.

I was hammered enough not to feel any disgust, just the same pressure as the night he'd found me at the party, the same wet slide of his tongue against mine, the same ache in my jaw as my mouth was pushed wider and wider. But when he slipped inside my bra, the pad of his thumb grazing my nipple—

"No."

My mind wandered to the imprints of Dallas's hands on my hips as he'd fucked me into the bathroom sink, the finger-shaped bruises he'd left on my skin and the indent of the faucet against my back. We'd knocked some of the bottles of pomade and powder off the counter, in a hurry to make up the only way we knew how, communicating things we'd never say in words. "I love Dallas," I said as I pulled away, and I was shocked to find that it was true. "I'm drunk, I dunno what I'm doin'— Curly, we can't."

"Man, you an' Angel— you keep puttin' love into that guy like he's a damn vending machine. Like he's gonna give you somethin' back."

"You don't give a damn about me neither." My hands were shaking; I wished I could've lit a cigarette. "You just think I'm a piece of ass."

He shrugged. "'Least I don't pretend otherwise, you know?" He grabbed his leather jacket off the back of the seat— pure vanity, it was too hot outside to wear one. "'Least I didn't drag you into a war you ain't ready for."

I groped for the chain around my neck as he left without paying, ran my thumb down the grooves of the ring.

Curly only valued something if he stole it.


	19. Hostile Acts

... If anyone missed Graham, he comes back in this chapter. With a vengeance.

* * *

 _Daddy was 'doin' business' down in the kitchen again, which usually involved a lot of cussing, strange, dark cigarettes passed back and forth, and threats to fuck each other's mothers. Mama had stormed out the night before to visit Great Aunt Helen, who'd been a flapper back in the 20's and once cut my hair short like one, and wouldn't be back for days; he never would've dared tried it otherwise._

 _I seethed with boredom as I lay tucked between pink princess sheets, the summer air making the cramped room feel even more like a prison; Darry was usually allowed in on these meetings, Soda and Ponyboy a few times, but never me. Tendrils of a bad impulse were beginning to creep through my brain, a lethal mix of curiosity and restlessness that always seemed to get me into trouble, and they were powerful enough for me to slip out of bed and pad into the hallway, hoping the shadows would shield me from view._

" _Nothing's gonna happen, for the last goddamn time," Daddy said, his voice harsh with irritation and dislike. I didn't know the men sitting around the table, sticking forks into the peach cobbler Mama had made for the church potluck— they were Mexican, sleeves of tattoos covering their arms, their hair buzzed short— but I did recognize Timmy Shepard, sipping at a Budweiser and looking bored with it all. "We go in and get the biggest payout we've ever seen, the hell's the problem? If I wanted to hang 'round a pack of pussies, I'd hit up my old lady's knitting circle."_

 _The oldest in the middle, who had a death grip on Timmy's shoulder, raked me over with his eyes once he spotted me near the doorway. "Hey there, pequeña," he said with the beginnings of an unpleasant smile. "How would you like to make your new stepdaddy a very, very happy man after Daddy goes inside?"_

 _I didn't ask what he meant, because Daddy had grabbed him by the collar and wrapped his fist around his throat first. "I'll kill you," he said calmly, conversationally; the man gurgled in his grip, his face tinged purple as he struggled to break free. "You ever run that fucking mouth 'bout my daughter again, I'll kill you, an' we'll see if yours recognizes Papi's body once I'm done."_

 _He gave a frantic nod; Daddy released him, letting him slump back down in his chair. "Get the fuck outta my house. All of you."_

" _This ain't over, Curtis," one who looked no older than a teenager threatened, but after that display, they beat it pretty damn fast— leaving me alone with my father, who wasted no time stalking over to me and marching me right back to my room._

" _Didn't I tell you this was men's talk, lil' girl?" He stood me between his legs as he sat down on my bed, gripping my elbows— a worried crease bisected his forehead. "Didn't I tell you to stay in your room?" I couldn't respond before the world tilted and I found myself staring at the carpet. "Well, you're in trouble now."_

* * *

I hadn't expected to find Sylvia on our couch in flannel pajamas, her hair disheveled and her eyes bleary; a rotation of boys regularly crashed there, enticed by the unlocked door, but she'd always been pressed up against me in my twin bed, the sound of her breathing lulling me to sleep. Soda sat beside her, shoveling cereal inside his mouth, watching the weather report. He didn't look too thrilled about it.

"I'm tellin' you, Pepsi-Cola," she said, her bare feet up on the coffee table and a mulish expression on her face, "the lady's a tramp."

"Like I told _you_ a thousand damn times, Dom's her cousin—"

"You kiss up on your cousins?" She gave him a hard nudge in the ribs with her elbow. "Didn't realize the Curtis clan liked to keep it in the family."

"I don't have no cousins," he said, drawing the sleeve of his flannel shirt across his mouth to mop up leftover milk. A lie. He had one. "But if I did... well, I guess if she was pretty enough..."

"Uh-huh." She smacked him with a rolled-up copy of Tiger Beat, like he was a misbehaving dog. "Her snatch must be outta this world if you're willin' to put up with this."

"Don't say—"

"Snatch."

"Remind me why you're here again?" Soda groaned. "Thought you an' Jas wasn't on speakin' terms no more."

I flushed hot, but Sylvia didn't miss a beat— she'd always been a better, more glib talker than I was. "Ray's on the booze again, pickin' fights," she said. "My mama told me to go apologize to her man, I told him to go shit bricks... next thing you know, I'm out on the street. Hope Darry don't mind— hey, Darry, you mind?"

"Not at all," Darry said from behind his newspaper, with the air of someone being forced to eat shit and smile about it. "There's no rules in this house, remember? I'm a _cool_ guardian. Stay as long as you want."

"How come you ain't at Nate's daddy's place?" I asked, making my presence known as I went to pour myself a glass of orange juice. The weed stash in 'the bachelor pad' was responsible for the death of at least half of Nate's brain cells; I'd had my first kiss there with Dennis Mackenzie when I was thirteen, tipsy off a peach wine cooler and the excitement of being bad, under his watchful eye. I couldn't imagine him turning her out.

She pressed her fingertips up to the nape of her neck. "He made a pass at me," she said, and my heart thumped a staccato beat inside my chest. "Last time I was there."

"God, I'm sorry," I said, and our eyes locked— and maybe I would've said something else, if Soda hadn't interrupted.

"We need to talk, Jas." He got up and put a restraining hand on my forearm; I about gagged from the mix of Old Spice and aftershave he'd slathered on. "Alone."

"I'm sorry Sylvia's buggin' you," I started as he led me into my room and shut the door behind us, "but I saw it with my own eyes, she ain't lyin'—"

"Forget about that— where'd you get all this cash you're sleepin' under?" He pulled a wad out from my mattress, between the sheet and the boards, leafing through it in disbelief. "Jasmine—"

"What are you doin' rootin' around in my room anyway?" I squawked, hoping I could distract him with the sheer strength of my indignation. "You gonna look through my panty drawer next?"

"Quit bein' a goddamn brat." It was enough to glue my tongue to the roof of my mouth. "I was _vacuuming_ , you're the one who's always sayin' we need to help out more. Where'd you get it from?"

I hooked my hair behind my ears, trying to steady myself with the motion. "I did a few babysittin' jobs for Mrs. Mathews, cleaned her house," I said, my pulse pounding so hard I feared I might faint. Goddammit, I should've found an abandoned warehouse or something to stash the money in, like any self-respecting pusher. "Saved it up so I could help out. What's the big deal?"

"Bullshit. You didn't get this from babysittin' Gracie Mathews— I _know_ where this kind of money comes from."

"From where, Soda?" I said with my hands on my hips. "Explain it to me."

"You're— God." He ground his palms into his eyes. "I don't wanna say it. I can't even fucking say it."

"Spit it out."

"Is Dallas... pimpin' you out?"

"Have you lost your damn _mind_." I had to shake my head like a wet dog, just to process that hot mess. "Is Dallas— what the hell are you _sayin'_? He's one of your best friends!"

"Why else would you have a hundred in cash stashed under your mattress? Why wouldn't you have just given it to Darry, if you wanted to 'help out'?" He glared at me. "There's this place called the House of the Rising Sun— it's where the Kings sell a bunch of girls your damn age, even younger. You better not go anywhere near there."

"There's this street on the North Side where no one's got locks or alarms on their cars, that the Tigers always rob the hell out of," I said quietly. "You ever go anywhere near _there_?"

"What are you even talkin' about?" He irritably swiped his hand through the air like he was swatting a mosquito, but I noticed the almost imperceptible widening of his eyes. "What damn street?"

"Are you in a gang? And I _don't_ mean fightin' Socs with Darry, not like that," I added quickly. "Are you swingin' with the Tigers?"

"That's crazy," he said, but he had a painfully expressive face; I'd seen him try to hide his feelings too many times when we were kids, tell any sort of lie, and he'd always been shit at holding his cards close to the vest. "Why the fuck would I be— who told you that?"

"You just did." If looks could kill... " _Fine_. Evie claims you an' Steve are stealin' hubcaps, sellin' them for extra cash. You got anythin' to say 'bout that?"

"We need the money," was all he could offer me as he capitulated, messing his hair up in the front. "Okay? It ain't some regular deal, they didn't jump me in or nothin'. And don't think you're changin' the subject."

I tilted my head with what I hoped resembled girlish innocence. "Dally gave it to me— it's from those races he runs at the rodeo. He knows we need—"

"We don't need _any_ of Dally's blood money," Soda cut off, stubborn pride radiating from the set of his jaw and the stiffness of his shoulders. "You take all this and give it right back to him."

"Don't be retarded." A cord of muscle in his neck throbbed— Soda never took kindly to insults to his intelligence, but I couldn't resist puncturing some of that bullheaded idealism, a trait he had in common with Pony. "It's clean enough to pay our bills, and that oughta be enough for you, car thief."

"Jas..." He sighed. "That dough ain't comin' from no horse races. He's sellin' drugs, with the Shepards."

It took every ounce of self-control I had to keep from laughing in his face. No, really, Soda? Not _drugs,_ God forbid. "How would _you_ know?"

"'Cause he tried to rope me into it."

"... What?"

"He offered to sign me on, okay?" Soda's leg bounced up and down like a metronome. "Told me that I shouldn't be wastin' my time down at the DX when I could be scrapin' together fifty a night with the product. But I said no."

"So that's too much for you, but rippin' cars apart, that ain't no big thing?"

"I ain't gonna turn out like Dad." The steely resolution in his voice shocked me; I still wasn't used to any of the boys criticizing our father that way. "I ain't gonna put the whole family in danger for an extra buck. People don't end up with bullets in their backs 'cause they lift a couple hubcaps once every blue moon."

"You'd be surprised." I wrapped my arms around my stomach, feeling tired and soul-weary. "You ain't gonna tell Darry, are you? That it ain't from no babysittin'?"

"Shit, honey, with the way Superman's been runnin' this joint lately, you'd better be worrying 'bout me." I forced out a laugh from between tightly-clenched teeth. "I ain't gonna tell him nothin'. Just—"

"I heard. Break up with Dallas yesterday, quit wearin' all that slutty makeup, come home at a decent hour—"

"I don't sound like that. Come _on_." All I did was raise an eyebrow in response, and being Soda, he couldn't help giving me a slight smile back. "Nah, I ain't gonna lecture you— you're real smart. You remember when Dad went inside, and Mom had to work two jobs to keep the bank from takin' the house, and Darry was runnin' with Tim Shepard— you wouldn't get yourself mixed up in nothin' dangerous."

He kissed me on the forehead, something he'd never done before, and rose to leave. "Just be careful," he said once his fingertips had brushed the doorway. "You're the only little sister I got."

That slick _fucker_. I lay down on my stomach, pressing my face into my pillow, and let out a loud groan. He didn't know me half as well as he thought, that was the trouble. Nobody did.

* * *

Of course he drove a silver Porsche. Of _course_ he did.

When it first pulled up to the corner I was hawking on, I wasn't sure what to think; it radiated wealth, but I had a lot of wealthy clients, either dealers who had struck gold or Socs with enough money to throw around on designer drugs. Then I saw the contemptuous face in the driver's window, and my blood turned to water, all my welcoming remarks leaving my head like they'd leaked through a sieve.

"Graham... what are you doin' here?" My mouth was so dry my tongue felt fossilized, robbing me of the ability to speak in more than short bursts. I wanted to run, but his eyes mesmerized me as he parked and threw the door open. "This ain't your turf."

"That spic friend of yours, she's a real sweetheart." He stalked closer to me, the tips of his shiny boots thudding against the pavement. "Showed up at my place the other day, threw some goddamn tantrum about how she won't sell to us anymore 'cause of you." The heat of his breath washed over my face, noxious and thick with whiskey. "My girlfriend was there. All my buddies were there. You really fucked a lot up for me."

"Seems you fucked a lot up for yourself," was all I managed to say before he reached for me. The world moved like a dream, the colors hazy, the sounds strange and distorted. Cicadas screamed somewhere off in the distance.

"I didn't _rape_ you," he hissed, twisting my arm behind my back so sharply I gasped. "You wanted it as bad as I did— you just said no so you wouldn't look easy. But then you got your feelings hurt, I didn't send you a fucking bouquet after... what's wrong, squaw, can't get a date?"

"Lemme go," I demanded, but with all the command of a rabbit clenched in the jaws of a wolf. _He could do it again_ , sliced through my head. _He could do it again—_

He pressed me up against the side of the building, the grimy, graffiti-covered bricks scraping against my back, and pawed at the front of my blouse. No scream came out of my mouth, my vocal chords screeching to a stop. "Think I know what you need."

"You Kinging, boy?"

Luis emerged from the shadows, casually strolling towards us, but the heater clenched in his fist made Graham grip me even tighter, like a child reaching for his mama. He opened his mouth, then slammed his lips back together just as fast.

"I asked you a question." He raised the barrel; it was a sleek model, newer than the one still lying loaded in Dad's sock drawer. "You Kinging? Is that why you think you can just stroll 'round Ramirez territory like you own it?"

"No," Graham finally said, his voice shaking violently as he released my arm and shuffled away from me. "Shit, I ain't some kind of... thug, you got the wrong idea. I go to TU— I'm an engineering major," he added with artificial brightness.

 _Pussy. You complete and utter_ _pussy_ _._

"Engineering, huh. That's nice." Luis's aim didn't falter as he held the heater up; somehow I knew without being told that he never wasted a bullet. "You start runnin' now, and keep your hands off Ramirez broads—"

"Or what?" Graham said, recovering enough insane bravado to smart off as he faced down the barrel of a gun. "That thing ain't scarin' me— it probably ain't even loaded."

Luis's finger hovered over the trigger. "Or else I pump you full of so much lead, your mama won't even be able to look at your body."

I didn't know it was possible to start a car up that fast.

"How's the girl who broke my nephew's heart?" One side of his mouth curled up into a humorless smile as he watched Graham floor it. "Makin' all sorts of friends, I see."

"Oh, for fuck's sake—" I couldn't help huffing, unwisely, and not very gratefully. I still wanted to take off down the street, running until my muscles burned and my lungs felt like they were being stabbed with a million knives, but I'd never been very good at it, and, besides. Luis would catch me.

"You got quite a mouth on you, don't you, sweetheart." He tucked the gun back into his belt and lit a cigarette, the smoke curling around his head. "Guess that's Curly's type, huh? Boys always marry their mothers."

"Shit..." I sat down on the curb, pinching the skin on my arms to get some feeling back into them. "You didn't have to come rescue me. I could've handled it."

"Sure, and then I would've had to dump your body in the river before the cops came sniffing 'round," he said. "If your daddy was alive, he would've made sure you was safe at home, pretty girl like you. Ain't you got no sense?" He chuckled. "I remember bein' over at your place one night, Carlos made some crack 'bout you, and he damn near choked him to death. He'd keep you in line."

"Yeah, he gave me one helluva lickin' after y'all left, didn't want me 'round that dirty talk." I'd been shocked at the time, then indignant— Dad had hardly ever punished us before he went inside, preferring to leave that to Mom, on the rare occasion he was home. Only now did I realize the fears that must've been ricocheting around in his mind, hearing those words. "My brother, he ain't care so much what I do."

"Always thought Darry was smarter than that." He flicked some of the ash onto the ground. "Who the fuck was that gringo? You two got history?"

"Can I have one?" I croaked instead of answering him, pointing at the other cigarettes tucked behind his ear. "Ain't been the easiest night."

(What I craved wasn't the dirty, nauseating high of nicotine, staining my hands as I choked on my short inhales— but I didn't want to admit to the desire curled around all my pleasure receptors out loud. Not even to myself.)

Luis wagged his finger at me, devoid of sympathy. "Ladies don't smoke."

"Maybe you oughta tell your niece that," I said under my breath.

He barked out a laugh. "Ain't nobody ever gonna be able to tell that lil' _hyna_ what to do, least of all me," he said dismissively. "Timmy's fightin' a losin' battle." He took so deep a drag, I could see his body constrict with the effort not to cough. "Just give me one thing straight. Is Dallas fuckin' her?"

"What?"

"Dallas," he said again, with a hint of impatience. "Is he fuckin' her?"

"No. _God_."

"That's good." He ran his thumb down the barrel of the .45, a smear of grease coming off on his skin. "He's a neat kid— reminds me of Alberto some. I'd sure hate to put a bullet in him."

Cicadas chirped in my ears. The summer was dying. "Dallas ain't fuckin' her," I said calmly. "But Joe is."

The cigarette fell to the ground, setting fire to one of the crinkling leaves around his feet. He didn't move to stomp it out. "What?"

* * *

Ponyboy was swimming in a ragged, grease-stained t-shirt, one Dad had worn roofing during the summer; he wasn't smoking, just staring off into the empty sky. "There's a plate on the stove, from dinner," he said as I sat down beside him on the porch, planting my feet on the brick steps. "I saved it for you."

"Thanks." All I could see was the remnants of Mom's garden in the front lawn, the dead irises and shasta daisies that nobody had bothered to water. The whole house was going to shit. "Anyone notice I left?"

"Not really," he said, absently leafing through the copy of The Carpetbaggers in his lap. That book was filthy; I wanted to take it away from him before he got to the part about sleeping with your own stepmomma. "Darry went out drinkin' with some of his friends, and Soda's with Sandy."

My nose involuntarily crinkled hearing Sandy's name. "You should go out too," I said, fumbling for a wad of cash; five bucks would be more than enough to get him some liquor at one of Tulsa's shadier bars. I suddenly wanted the house to be empty, to be left alone with the thoughts beating at the walls of my skull. "Have some fun."

"I don't want your fuckin' money, Jas." He recoiled from me, as stiff and distant as ever, and I jammed the torn bills back inside my bra, stung. "Just tell me where you been. You're never even home anymore."

 _Letting a bee drown in honey_. "I sold some grass," I said. "Then I started a turf war. Eventful day."

Pony had Mom's eyes. All the judgement, and none of the warmth. "What the hell is your problem?" he started laying into me, his invectives swarming around my head like a cloud of wasps. "We can't make trouble, the state will split us— or Darry's just gonna give up custody, you know he's lookin' for an excuse. Do you care about _anything_ other than gettin' your kicks with Dally?"

"No, you an' Soda are supposed to be good little boys so that the Curtis brothers can stick together," I bit out angrily, though I wasn't really angry with him. " _I'm_ the one who's gonna be taken away 'cause I'm the girl, and ain't a damn thing I can do about it." I plucked a blade of grass and shredded it, tinging my fingertips green. "Doesn't matter what I get up to no more, does it, if I'm down in Lubbock? Doubt the fuzz are gonna chase me across state lines for a few dime bags."

"What d'you mean, _Lubbock_?" He answered his own question in the next second, and turned away from me; his eyes were screwed shut, but his nostrils were flaring, making him look like he was about to cry. "When'd everything get so fucked up, huh?" he addressed to nobody in particular.

"I never got why you were so into this shit." A bleak chuckle escaped my lips before I could clamp down on it. I sounded like Darry; I wanted to die. "What's the point?"

"Watchin' sunsets?" He gave me a nervous laugh in return, trying to smooth some of his greased-up hair over his ears. "I dunno— they're beautiful, don't you see it? Why's everything gotta have a _point_?"

"No." I gazed up at the sky, the pink bleeding into orange bleeding into gold, and thought about the look on Luis's face. "No, you're wrong. Ain't nothin' beautiful on this side of the tracks."

"Jas—"

The imprint of those big green eyes haunted me long after I went inside.


	20. Some Unholy War

"Jas," Dallas said quickly, spitting his words like chunks of hail as he entered the kitchen, "I need a gun."

"... Okay." I took my oven mitts off and swiped my arm across my sweaty forehead; I was baking for the social worker tomorrow, a last-ditch attempt to get her over on my side. "Ain't sure how I'm supposed to help you with that, though."

"So I took the one in your daddy's underwear drawer," he went on, which was when I noticed the bulge in his pant leg— and it wasn't _that_ kind of bulge. "You think Superman's gonna notice? He ever take it out?"

We weren't supposed to touch that gun— on threat of dire punishment— but despite all the many rules Darry had set for us, more than our parents had ever bothered with, he'd forgotten to reiterate this one. "He probably won't," I said, "we never go in Mom and Dad's room no more, not even to clean."

"Huh," Dallas said, taking one of the brownies without asking and shoving it into his mouth, "Soda told me he was the best shot, on them huntin' trips— you ever see him in action?"

I scowled. Dad had never taken me, just my brothers and whatever adopted brother was his favorite that day; meanwhile, Mom corralled me and Sylvia into helping her make a massive lunch for their return. I'd always hated hunting trips. "Nah, Dad thought I'd get sick from all the blood." If only he'd known how much blood girls saw every month...

"Yeah, Dad never took me either." Dallas twirled the .45 around in his hands, mindless of the fact that it was loaded. "Dunno why. I always wanted to go."

(I wished he wouldn't call my parents Mom and Dad in front of me— it was a petty, selfish desire, borne out of the worst parts of my consciousness, but it was an honest one. Every time he said it I remembered that we'd grown up together, that he'd torn the heads off my Barbies, that my brothers referred to him as brother. Everything was wrong now, jagged like shards of broken glass. I'd broken it.)

"What d'you need a heater so bad for?" I asked instead of vocalizing those thoughts. "Switchblades ain't cool 'nuff accessories for the modern greaser no more?"

"Shit's goin' _down_ all over the North Side, fixin' to spill into the East soon enough— it looks like a war zone." He smiled at me with sharp teeth. "Luis went to go pump Joe full of bullets last night, an' from what I heard, they both made it, but Kings and Ramirez are shoot on sight at this point." He sighed happily. "And Pony tried to feed me some bullshit 'bout how there's no gang rivalry in the southwest, goddamn. There sure is, if you light the fuse."

Nausea raced up my throat, and I clenched the edge of the sink, suddenly terrified that I was going to vomit— but I still wasn't sorry I'd done it. Not that it would've mattered if I _had_ been sorry; I was struck by a sense of irreversibility, that some actions could never be taken back, no matter how the consequences played out. "You okay?" Dallas asked, a rare note of concern tinging his voice, and pressed a kiss to the border between my lips and my cheek. "I'll be fine, promise— won't be the first time I shot a heater."

I was starting to say something in the affirmative when Sylvia piped in from Dad's— _Darry's_ — armchair, flinging aside her school-assigned copy of My Ántonia. "You two gotta do that right in front of me, huh? Ain't got no shame?"

"If you don't like how it is at my house, you can always bounce," I started to say defensively, but Dallas drowned me out before she could hear.

"Girl, ain't you lucky I got any shame at all, 'cause if I didn't, I'd've beaten your ass into a crater by now." He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, managing to look intimidating even in a too-big t-shirt that had once been Darry's. "I know damn well you was the one who smashed my car up like a piñata."

"My brother did that." She got up from where she'd been lounging and circled him; she'd left a lipstick-shaped stain on the rim of her coffee cup, a frosted pink smirk. "I figured missin' me would be punishment enough."

I'd gotten monumentally hammered last night, used my fake driver's license to buy a bottle of bourbon and gone to town; it hadn't worked, my dreams filled with Graham pressed up to me, his breath hot on my neck all over again, and when I closed my eyes the whole world tilted against my will. Sylvia was prettier than me, even a scumbag like Norm could suss it out in a second; not just the bleach-blonde hair cascading down her back, but the way she swung her hips, the way she artfully applied her makeup to look like a _better_ version of pouty, coy Brigitte Bardot. I wanted to kill her.

"You better treat Johnny right, you hear?" he said with a scowl spreading across his face, but his eyes caught on the curve of her ass like it was a thorn on a vine. "I'll fuck you up if you start messin' around on him, broad or not."

"Don't be so damn boring," she said as her fingertips brushed the cotton of his shirt; I resisted the urge to pry them apart with a crowbar. "You sound like _Steve_ , Christ hell, I heard the first time." She withdrew from him all of a sudden and turned to me. "Dally here get a lobotomy and start treatin' you good, Jas?"

Before I could respond, she burst into a fusillade of speech again. "'Cause he treated me like fuckin' _shit_ , ain't that right? Angela Shepard ring any bells?"

"You're the one sleepin' with my best friend," Dallas said, "ain't you got your pound of flesh yet?" He reached over for another brownie. "'Sides, why would I cheat on Jasmine? Her tits ain't two different sizes."

I wanted to tell her about Graham now that she was sober, I realized as their bickering faded into background noise, a refrigerator hum inside my brain; I wanted to curl up with her like when we were kids, feel the familiar comfort of her hand in mine, crawl back into a safer place. But she'd never look at me the same again; she didn't have the right frame of reference to process it, not the way Angela and Dallas did. It'd be like my old friend Carolyn Miller, from grade school, who'd slowly stopped returning my phone calls after my parents' accident, the tension too awkward to bridge.

(And then there was the part of me that couldn't forget how at some point that night, she'd noticed I'd never come back upstairs from the basement, then gone home alone without a second thought. The fire of that anger lapped at my insides, coiled around them too tight to be dislodged, and engulfed me as I sat down on the counter and cupped Dallas's face with my flour-covered hands.)

* * *

"Lady," came Tim's fatigued drawl as I crept inside the Shepard house, "you really expect me to believe them lies you got goin'? Luis just ran down to put a bullet in Joe 'cause he was feelin' it?"

Angela looked different than usual— her face was scrubbed free of makeup, the hem of her skirt downright decent, a facsimile of a Catholic schoolgirl. More jarring was her slumped posture, the way she twirled a jet black lock around her finger and avoided his gaze. "I don't have to tell you shit," she croaked. "Ain't you got better things to do than micromanage my love life?"

"I wish I did." Tim gave her a look I'd seen on Darry's face before, a lethal combination of fear and disappointment. "If you been runnin' round with the head of the Kings, you don't have to worry 'bout Luis doin' nothin', I'm gonna blow his head off myself." He slammed his fist down on the coffee table, hard enough to knock an untouched copy of Good Housekeeping onto the ground. "You're _fourteen_. You better shape up, lady, you hear me?"

"C'mon, Tim, let it go," Curly cut in, picking at his cuticles. I got an unpleasant flashback to me and Darry snarling at each other, Soda fruitlessly trying to negotiate a peace agreement; maybe middle siblings were the same, no matter what family you put them into. "Ain't like you wasn't gettin' tail in seventh grade—"

"Shut your trap; I'm sick an' tired of hearin' some new rumor 'bout who my kid sister's fuckin' every time I go outside." Tim barely turned his head to say it. "I ain't raisin' no babies if you end up in the family way, Angela. And neither is Ma, I promise— she couldn't even raise her own damn babies."

"Nothin' happened." She scuffed the toe of her shoe against the dirty, matted carpet. "You been bitchin' for weeks 'bout Luis lookin' for an excuse to cruise into King territory, and now you're surprised he made one up?"

"That's not what he claims Jasmine said." Tim's eyes found me with the precision of a laser, exposed the way I was skulking in the doorway, trying to blend into the gaudy wallpaper. "Jasmine, is she full of shit, or did you just really want Joe dead last night?"

Before I could process the fact that Luis didn't protect his snitches, or even recoil from the strength of Angela's glare, the front door clattered shut with enough force to make me jump. "Would someone _please_ tell me why there's a dead raccoon rottin' on my porch?" A dark-haired man stumbled into the room, with an awkward gait I immediately clocked as drunk; it was their longest-lived stepfather, Ed. "It stinks to high heaven, it's attractin' flies, and its throat's slit, so don't you try an' say one of your gangbanger buddies didn't drop it off—"

"It don't sound too different from some of your kinfolk."

"You think that's fuckin' funny, you little shit? Real fuckin' funny?" A vase whizzed past my head and crashed against the wall, ceramic shards scattering all over the floor; it missed Tim by a country mile. "You're eighteen now, you wanna act grown so bad, you can get outta my house and don't let the door hit your ass. I'm done with you actin' like this is your personal dope den."

"This is my daddy's house," Tim said with quiet, yet mesmerizing command— he didn't need to raise his voice to be heard. "You're the one squattin' in it."

Ed clenched his fist so tight, his knuckles looked like they were about to burst out of the skin; Tim stared him down with bored languor, one eyebrow cocked above the other. " _You_ take Mary Magdalene and drive out to Wichita Falls for all I fuckin' care, if you don't like how the rent gets paid 'round this joint, but don't you pretend your drunk ass could support the kids for a week if I really left."

"I better not come back to none of your daddy's people here," Ed threw over his shoulder, a parting shot. "You know how much it upsets your mother."

The vein above Tim's left eye twitched, then he heaved a sigh. "Curly, throw that fucking coon in the trash before we get swarmed with flies," he said; Curly jumped to do his bidding, eager for any excuse to exit this conversation. "Hope Ma didn't like that vase too much."

"I'm sorry... 'bout your stepdaddy." My words sounded painfully stiff, like the neighbors traipsing down to our house after Mom and Dad died; the Shepard clan wasn't much of one for pity, didn't know what to do with it once they'd gotten it, but I would've felt even shittier standing there and gawping at the wreckage. Worst of all was how they shrugged it off and moved on in a matter of seconds, like Ed throwing breakables was as interesting as three A.M. TV static. "He shouldn't treat y'all that way."

He looked embarrassed that I'd drawn attention to it at all. "Hey, ain't you never heard the joke 'bout why the Little League team called themselves The Stepdads?" Tim rummaged through one of the cabinets for a broom, grimaced at the mass of cobwebs stuck to it. "'Cause we beat you and you hate us.' Ain't no big thing."

Curly cut us off as he came back inside, the screen door screeching behind him— my tongue twisted inside my mouth as I saw his completely bloodless face, the stack of grainy photographs he had clutched in his fist. "Motherfucker," he said, the word hanging in the air like a bag of cement. "Miguel— Joe pumped him full of lead. Left us a present."

* * *

An eerie stillness took hold, and slowly, we all began to sink into it. I felt like I was disappearing, like if I held my hand in front of my face it would be fading into darkness.

"Shit, he looks like Cousin Santi did," Curly said, biting down on a hysterical laugh; it wasn't funny, none of this was funny at all, but I had to bite down on my own. The entire situation was absurd. "With all them bullets in him."

"Santi looked worse." Tim threw them back down on the table like they were infected with polio, muttering a steady stream of Spanish and English cusses. Miguel gaped at us, his eyes blank and unseeing, blood streaming out of the wounds in his chest and abdomen— I couldn't look away, his body a five-car pileup. "Fuck, he was a good kid, smarter than half the dumbass cocksuckers in this outfit— he didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve none of this."

Angela grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking hard enough that I felt it strain at the roots, strands coming out in her hand— for all her posturing, I wryly noted, she still fought like a girl. "Bitch," she snarled with unveiled contempt, her eyes shining black. "If you'd kept your goddamn mouth shut, you think maybe this wouldn't have happened? He'd still be alive?"

"Don't hit her." Curly pulled her back by the elbow; she wrenched free of his grip and gave him a hard shove in return.

"Why not? 'Cause you're fuckin' her?" She laughed then, short and mirthless. "Everyone's so interested in that now, ain't they, who's fuckin' who?"

"Nah, Angela, go ahead, I can give it back." I slapped her before my prefrontal cortex caught up with the primal rest of my brain; the recoil stung my palm, and she gave a theatrical, wounded gasp. "The hell were you tryna do with Graham, huh, get me killed? 'Cause he showed up at my cor—"

She clapped her hand over my mouth, and I instinctively bit down, drawing blood, the taste of rolling a dirty penny around on my tongue. "Quit it," Tim said, tugging us apart by the scruff of our necks like misbehaving kittens, and shot us his fiercest scowl; if he knew what I'd almost said, he didn't give any indication of it. "I ain't in the fuckin' mood to settle a catfight right now, goddamn, do it on your own time."

He strode on over to the phone, pulling the receiver off the hook, then slammed it back down with a loud clang. "Curly, get on over to tíos, let 'em know what happened. Might shock Luis into usin' his head for once."

"He didn't mean for this to happen," Curly said in a small, trembling voice, "he liked Miguel, he wouldn't have—"

"Maybe next time he'll aim straight." Tim spun around to glare at him. "We better all get on our knees and pray the rosary that the fuzz don't start lookin' for him, 'else we're up shit's creek, and I didn't pack a paddle."

He didn't stop to make sure his marching orders were obeyed before he grabbed the pile of photographs. "Where are you going?" I asked; I sounded like I was talking from inside of a fish bowl, all distorted. I didn't want him to leave, suck the last shred of stability out of the room and leave me with two kids just as frightened and helpless as I was.

His smile pushed up the edge of his scar. It made me feel sick to look at him, like falling from a great height. "I'm gonna go show Dallas some pictures. See if he likes how they came out."

* * *

I came home to Darry beating the hell out of the punching bag in the garage; sweat streamed down his face and onto his shoulders, red and peeling from sunburn, as he moved with an agility he'd never lost. Unfortunately, his equally agile mind clocked me trying to slip inside unnoticed. "Jasmine, get in here."

He didn't elaborate at first; he grabbed a crusted towel off of Dad's workbench and swiped his face with it, then pulled his t-shirt back on over his head, letting me stew in my own guilt. "Where you been?"

I extracted a loose weed from my purse, lit it up before answering him. "With Angela, Angela Shepard," I said after my first drag. "Someone in her brother's gang got shot."

"You better put out that damn cigarette when I'm talkin' to you," Darry said, and he sounded so much like Dad that a physical ache settled inside me, right under my sternum.

"Or what?"

He nabbed it out of my mouth and crushed it under the heel of his work boot. "I'm already missin' cool Darry," I just kept saying; the uppers I'd taken before I left had unscrewed my painfully loose tongue, making me _really_ say whatever entered my head. "Was that supposed to be a punishment or somethin'? You expect us to come crawlin' back to you beggin' for more rules? 'Cause that was the easiest I've breathed for eight months."

He was standing under the sole lightbulb, his face shrouded in shadow as he dipped his head. "You think you're real grown now, don't you."

"Maybe I do," I dared to say; I felt curiously separate from this whole situation, like my body was being forced to face justice while my mind was somewhere else, flipping through those pictures, battered by Angela's fists, pressed up against the wall. I didn't belong here, I didn't belong here at all.

"I think you're a little girl with a big mouth." He scoffed. "But I got no fucking idea what to do with you anymore."

"You don't have to _do_ nothin', you got the right idea." Time for my best Clarence Darrow impression. "Nobody asked you to pretend to be Dad— we're all practically adults. Just let us live our lives the way we want."

"It doesn't work like that, _kid_." He snapped the towel off his neck and threw it aside, not caring where it landed on the grimy floor. "Mom and Dad named me as y'all's guardian in their will— they trusted me to do a good job, not just fuck around for the next four years 'til Pony's eighteen. Ain't gonna fly with the state, neither."

"Cut the shit, you ain't foolin' nobody save yourself," I said flatly. "You've made it damn clear you don't want me here, it'd be the happiest day of your life if I was someone else's problem—"

" _I_ don't want you here?" he hissed, mouthing the words again like he couldn't believe his ears. "The only thing you've done for the past month is show me how much you wanna be gone, like rubbin' a dog's nose in piss— what am I supposed to do, bribe you? Beg you to stay?"

"Nah, if you can't keep me in a chastity belt, just kick me out to go live with strangers." I swung one foot further back, my hips beginning to swivel in the direction of the garage door.

"This conversation look like it's over to you, young lady?" He grabbed my wrist before I could stalk off, his fingers curling around the bone bump; I'd always known he was bigger than me, much stronger, but never felt so physically conscious of it until now. "Goddammit, you don't get to just flounce away from me with the last word. I oughta whoop your ass."

"Yeah, that's your solution to everything, ain't it, Mussolini." His cold eyes used to scare me right after the accident, the way he spit out orders like a machine gun, too; now he just looked young and unsure, barely five years my senior, under that veneer of authority. I didn't care if he hit me; I didn't care much about what happened to me anymore. "You don't wanna know why I do shit, what's goin' on, you just wanna knock it right out."

"Then _tell_ me."

"I did." I derived some pleasure from how the words slithered out, calculated, meant to wound. "You were just too wasted to notice, and I ain't sayin' it twice."

He didn't stop me from leaving this time.

* * *

My parents' room was a time capsule— Dad's work boots tipped over next to the bed, Mom's lipstick left uncapped on the vanity, the smell in the air a mix of musty clothing and crocus perfume. I stepped back and reeled, tears stinging the corners of my eyes; I felt like I was desecrating a shrine, but I needed answers far more than I'd ever respected anything, so I shoved down that feeling and started to root through the chest of drawers.

I didn't find much at first, sifting through piles of threadbare boxers and socks Mom hadn't gotten around to darning, before I grasped yellowed, water-stained papers, court papers. Darrel Patrick Curtis, the stack announced as I leafed through it, detailing the conditions of his early release in January 1960 instead of October 1961, his mandatory meetings with his probation officer, the charges he'd been leveled with— I'd never seen them written out so starkly before, assault and battery, resisting arrest, felony possession of heroin with intent to distribute. They reminded me of the bite of handcuffs around my wrists, a hand shielding my head from the top of the police car, endless hours inside a holding cell— I threw them back in with the other detritus, my stomach churning.

Finally, amidst some inkless pens, I found what I'd come snooping for— old black-and-white photographs that had never made it into the family album, me and Soda taking a bath together, Darry after his first tee-ball game, Pony in Mom's lap with a copy of Charlotte's Web. They all read like lies to me now; I knew what lay behind the wholesome images, the drugs and the shouting at night and the institutional visitation at Big Mac and pretending we weren't home when the bank came to foreclose and all that _rot_. I wanted to pull my lighter out and burn them up, until I reached the one at the very bottom.

Dad's face was split into a grin so wide he looked like a jack-o'-lantern, his arm slung around Mom's waist; Mom stared at the camera through hooded eyes, resting a hand on the curve of her swollen belly. And beside them, a girl in a faded floral dress, her hair twisted into twin pigtails— she was almost twenty years younger, but the arrogant tilt of her chin was unmistakable, the traces of her brother in the features they shared.

I flipped it over. Scrawled in lead pencil, Dad's childishly large handwriting filled up the back. _Lubbock, 1948— me, Frannie (+ Soda!), and Rosie._


	21. Cheap Thrills

I can't believe it's been over a year since I posted the first chapter... getting a little emotional here. Thanks for all the support, guys, you've kept me going through so much.

Okay, okay, sorry. Onto the story.

* * *

My mouth tasted dry and gritty when I woke up in the middle of the night, like I'd swallowed sand— I'd slept in fits and starts, stumbling around the labyrinth of my unconscious, and I finally pulled a bottle of barbs out from under my bed. _Don't take too many at once_ , Dally had warned me before he'd handed it over, _it's the shit that killed Marilyn Monroe_ , so I only shook one into my palm. (Not that I should've been using my own product to begin with, but I'd long since burned that bridge.)

I hadn't planned on finding Darry and Soda at the kitchen table, passing a bottle of beer back and forth, before I could pour myself a glass of water— I returned to my room without it, hovering near the door frame. "We should g- _go_ to bed, shit," Soda hiccupped, "social worker's gonna have a field day if we're hungover."

"Tell her I gave you booze an' I'll break your fingers," Darry said, but without the seriousness that permeated his threats to me and Pony— he'd never figured out how to parent Sodapop, or even really tried. Then he sighed, massaging his temples. "I need some liquid courage. Fuck. God knows what Jasmine's gonna say to Miss Edwards— I'll be lucky if I don't end up in the clink by this time tomorrow."

Soda slipped into a familiar grin, but there was still tension gathered in the lines of his face. "Miss Thing might be givin' you shit lately... but she knows better than to flap her jaws 'round the state. What's the worst she could come up with?"

"That she hates it here, that I slap her around, that there ain't enough money, that the neighborhood's a shithole, a _dangerous_ shithole... come on, Soda, can you get any more thick?"

Chair legs screeched against the floor. "Forget it. You can solve your own damn problems."

"... Wait," Darry said before he could storm off, his eyes pleading— he never apologized, this was the closest he'd get to it. "I'm serious, just listen to me for a second." He jammed his elbows into his thighs, folding his massive frame in half. "The night after Mom an' Dad's funeral... she came home late, real late. From a party, maybe— fuck, I can't remember nothin' straight, I was so plastered. I just get a real sick feelin' when I think back to it. She looked like someone sucked her soul out."

"Where's this goin'?"

"Did somethin' happen to her?" Darry asked hesitantly, and my blood became as heavy as a sack of coins, sinking me down to the floor.

Soda's eyes narrowed, making him look even more like Mom than usual. "Like what?"

"She was cryin'."

"So, Mom and Dad had just died, we was all cryin'—"

"You know what I'm talkin' about, Sodapop."

Soda refused to fill the silence for a few seconds, before he rent it with a laugh as bright as ringing bells. "Oh, come _on_ , there ain't no way in hell. You really think if someone took advantage of her, she'd be dressin' in those short skirts, runnin' around all over the city with _Dallas_? You gotta be kiddin' me."

"Dallas knows somethin', but of course the four horsemen of the apocalypse can't drag it outta him." Darry pressed his lips into an angry line. "Couldn't even defend my own sister— you know what I should've defended her from, _him_. She's always been mouthy, I'll give her that, but they start datin' and now she's an inch away from doin' time." He grabbed the bottle again and chugged with abandon. "You think he's sleepin' with her?"

Soda rubbed the back of his neck. "That is the last thing I _wanna_ think about, but—"

Darry groaned and put his face in his hands, resembling a felled tree; Soda patted him on the shoulder, once, twice. "Jasmine's got two big brothers," he said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than Darry. "And Pony'll do in a pinch. C'mon, if anything happened to her, she knows we'd go after the guy with pitchforks."

"Yeah, you're right." Darry heaved himself out of the chair. "We better get to sleep. Tomorrow's gonna be enough of a shitstorm without us yawnin' our way through it."

I flung myself back onto my bed and tugged a pillow over my stomach, like I expected to get hit; I wanted a shot of whiskey, a shot of heroin, a shot to the head, anything that would annihilate me. Make me forget what I'd just heard.

I dry-swallowed three barbs instead.

* * *

"I ain't apologizin'." Dallas sucked his Kool dry and flicked the ashes out the truck window, eyeing Will Rogers with no small amount of disdain. "For fuck's sake, it's not like I pumped the guy full of lead _myself_."

His face was usually littered with wounds, but this encounter with Tim was a record even for him; his nose looked smashed right in, blood staining the surface of the bad job he'd done bandaging it, and his jaw was mottled with fresh bruises. I shouldered my bag, gripping the door handle, it was almost time for first bell; he kept on going. "I mean, I ain't some kind of monster— it's a damn shame he died and all— but Jesus _Christ_ , ain't like Miguel was gonna grow up to be a brain surgeon if Joe hadn't shot him. And if he really wants to start pinnin' blame, he can look at them uncles of his— doin' the same as me, movin' into King territory. With a hell of a lot more influence and money. He's just scared shitless of them."

I wasn't surprised to hear him say it— Dallas was like a weed, living out of sheer spite— but the harshness of his words startled me all the same. The photos had haunted my nightmares, Miguel rising up from his grave, condemnation on his lips. But he'd seen murders before in New York, chalk outlines on the pavement, even gotten caught up in a bad rap back then— for him, yesterday had just been Sunday.

"Is Curly makin' moves on you?" He brushed some specks of dust off the arm of his leather jacket, snapping me out of the sticky morass of my thoughts. "'Cause say the word, and I'll knock his front teeth out."

"What?"

"C'mon, everybody and their mother's heard that bullshit story of his, 'bout how he fucked you." He unsheathed his knife from his jeans pocket, the blade glinting in the sunlight. "Maybe I oughta teach him to keep his mouth shut 'bout my girl. He pulls this with a guy less nice than me and he'll end up six feet under."

"No... what the hell, Dally, no." I unconsciously reached for my mother's necklace, only to remember I'd replaced it with his ring on a chain. "Don't hit him."

"Why not?" He squinted at me, and not just because he was staring right into the sun. "You like him now?"

"'Course I don't." I put a hand on his upper arm, unsure of whether I wanted the gesture to be affectionate or restraining. "I'm just worried 'bout your face. You're gonna look like Frankenstein if you keep this up. Or worse— Tim."

"You worry too damn much— like lil' Curly Shepard could whip me." He brushed his thumb over my nipple, hardening it into a stiff peak even through my bra, and thrust a bag of Quaaludes at me. "Get rid of these before the end of the day, okay?

He took hold of my wrist before I could get more than one foot onto the asphalt, and kissed me, threading his hands through my hair to pull me closer. "You're mine," he said, "ain't you? Curly can't have you."

 _I'll take care of you now, baby_ , and that's what it all came down to, wasn't it? "I'm yours," I said, and climbed into his lap to kiss him back, my knees digging deep enough into his thighs to leave marks, until the second bell rang out through the parking lot.

"I really better go," I reluctantly said, extracting myself from his tight grip. "Pills won't sell themselves."

That was what school had become to me now— the janitor's closet where I slept if I'd been out late, the bleachers where I skipped gym to smoke, the halls where I surreptitiously pushed the product. I no longer made a distinction between me and the worst kinds of girls at Will Rogers, pregnant, faces slathered in makeup, counting down the days until they could drop out and get married— if anything, I commanded their respect, because I was the girl who'd bagged Dallas Winston.

"What the fuck is _wrong_ with this engine?" He smacked the steering wheel twice as he let go of the gas pedal, like that would make the whirring noise stop. "What kind of piece of shit did Shepard _drive_ , anyway?"

"You might wanna take it to the mechanic soon," I said, with a weariness that pressed down on me like iron. "It's full of sugar."

* * *

When I found Angela in the front lobby during lunch period, already halfway out the wide glass doors, the girls who flanked her attacked me before I could get a word in.

"What do _you_ want?" Patty flipped out her compact, pretending to powder her face while never taking her eyes off me. "We're busy."

"I need to talk to you, Angel." My lips felt like lizard skin when my tongue darted out to wet them, dry and chapped; my cheeks were bloated from too much drinking; strands of hair stuck out from the top of my head, making me look like I'd been electrocuted. _She_ looked like she'd spent an hour primping that morning. "It's important."

"Ain't you heard?" Sally said, tilting her nose up into the air. "She don't wanna talk to you, does she?"

"Wait." Angela held her hand up; Sally's mouth shut into a sulky pout. "Just give me a minute, I'll be back, okay?"

"But Angie, Bryon's waitin' for us out front—"

"Then he can wait a little bit longer, can't he?" she said sweetly, a snap of command in her voice. "Gas is cheap."

Sally and Patty scurried off once she dismissed them; I wracked my brains to put a name to a face, remembering amber eyes that gleamed like a lion's on the savannah. "Bryon the one whose mama and daddy shot each other to death?"

"That's his brother Mark," she said. "Bryon's the cute one with all the muscles." Every inch of her radiated hostility, from her arms crossed under her breasts to the way she tapped her foot against the linoleum, making it clear I was an imposition on her valuable time. There was a bruise over her left eye where I'd decked her— I didn't know why she hadn't covered it with makeup, maybe to look tougher, add to her fearsome reputation. "Tutoring's over, what do you want now?"

"An apology." Her jaw actually dropped open— she wasn't much of one for them, clearly. "I saved your ass down at the station, when we got picked up, and now I got Graham stalkin' me on street corners and you're blamin' me for Miguel's death, just to put the cherry on the shit sundae. Guess my brothers were right— never trust a Shepard."

"Fuck you," she said, but it sounded more instinctual than spit with real venom. "I was tryna _protect_ you, God, I thought the guys I brought from the gang would scare him off from you."

"Why do you think I told your uncle 'bout Joe, then, 'cause I want a piece of him myself?" It was a lie— I still wasn't sure why I'd told Luis anything— but what it came down to was that I valued the life of one person I cared about than the lives of dozens I didn't. "He's sick in the head, Angel, you can't keep goin' down there—"

"Joe loves me," she said with absolute conviction. "You got no idea what you're talkin' about."

"That what he tells all the girls at the Rising Sun?"

"Probably." The blunt acceptance in her voice took some of the wind out of my sails. "But it ain't like I got people linin' up to give a shit about me, you know, especially not people handin' out horse like Santa Claus—"

"Ain't we friends?"

She leaned over and kissed me, her mouth tasting like Red Vines and cherry lipgloss; I was too startled to push her away, and it ended after only a second. "I don't have friends. Just fucks."

 _You're lucky nobody saw that, for God's sake, Angela, we'd get expelled_ , I wanted to say, but somehow I doubted she would've cared even if they had. "I just need to explain what happened," she said before I could sputter anything, "make sure he knows it ain't my fault, I didn't sell him out. I'll fix it."

"Oh God, you can't be serious." I clutched at my head, wanting to rip my ears off so I wouldn't have to listen to any more of this. "If he sees you again, he's gonna fucking kill you."

"You remember that night I shot you up?"

"... Yeah." I tried to stop my brain from taking that particular stroll down memory lane, recalling the comfortable numbness, the gold haze that penetrated every tense place inside of me and made nothing matter, ever again. "So what?"

"So you should understand." She shifted her weight from one foot to another. "I gotta go meet up with my girls."

"You hungry?" I asked before she could walk away.

Angela gave an indifferent shrug, but I knew that wasn't the truth— her mama and stepdaddy had probably drank up all the grocery money. I wondered if her drawn cheekbones weren't just from the heroin. "Want half of this?" I brandished the turkey sandwich Darry had smashed together that morning; I suddenly wished I hadn't told him, back in January, that his weren't half as good as Mom's.

She didn't say thank you, but she still took it.

* * *

"Heard this is the place to go if I want some Quaaludes."

"You scared me," I accused once I'd caught my breath, terrified that it was some teacher or a do-gooder Soc; Steve cruised into my line of sight, a smear of oil across his forehead from auto mechanics. "Don't you know better than to sneak up on people?"

"Funny," he said between puffs on his verboten-on-school-property cigarette, "thought nothin' much scared you no more. Then again, also heard you been suckin' Curly 'dumbass is my middle name' Shepard off behind the bleachers, so I ain't sure what exactly I'm s'pposed to be believin' these days."

"Guess you're gonna rat me out to Darry, then?" I asked, my voice all sigh, electing to ignore the jab about Curly to focus on my impending doom. Also ignoring the tiny, tiny part of me that hoped beyond all hope that he _would_ rat me out to Darry, put me out of my misery already.

"No," Steve said, digging through his pockets for loose change, "I want some Quaaludes."

"Don't fuck with me." I swept my hair over my shoulder and started braiding a section, just to have something to do with my hands. "I _really_ ain't in the mood."

"Don't try to talk all hood, you're just embarrassin' yourself," he said in that soft, creepy voice of his; I was reminded of why I usually tried to dodge him when he was over. "I'm serious. What's the goin' rate?"

"Fifty cents a pill, and that's me givin' you the friend discount," slipped out from between my teeth, once I saw that he really did have his palm out. "And stick to boozin' it up after this round."

He laced his fingers through the gaps in the chainlink fence and gave me a painfully condescending look. "You better be more careful next time you post up— you're damn lucky Soda don't still go to school." His eyes gleamed like gunmetal, a mix of gray and green. "Two-Bit's still here, and trust me, he'd snitch to Darry faster than you could flush that bag down the toilet."

"Why are you tellin' me this?"

"I have it on good authority that you know about me and Soda, makes it pretty hard to threaten you," he said, "and I dunno, I guess you're _marginally_ less irritating to me than Ponyboy."

I bit back my smile at 'marginally'; for all his hood attitude, Steve was smarter than he let on. "Hey, lay off, that's my little brother you're talkin' about."

"Kid can't so much as wipe his ass without makin' Soda congratulate him." He pulled out one of his binders from his backpack, started flipping through the notes for some history test. "Dally put you up to this?"

"Maybe I put myself up to this," I said, not bothering to mask my irritation, "ain't like I didn't come by it honestly."

He made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. "Your daddy wasn't no angel, but he was tryna feed his family. Seems to me you're bored and lookin' for trouble."

"You don't know the first thing about me, Steve." I leaned up against the fence too, pressing the back of my head to the hot metal. None of them did, that was the problem. "And you're awful quick to judge, for a guy hawkin' stolen car parts."

"Either I hawk them car parts, or I'm out on the street, 'cause my old man drinks up all the rent money—"

"So did mine." I wanted to take a long, hot shower after saying the words, watching Steve's eyes widen on impact. "He liked the thrill, trust me, he was bored _stupid_ workin' construction for shit pay. And so do you, or else you'd have dropped outta school already for double shifts."

"I changed my mind— bad as Ponyboy is, you're ten times worse. 'Least the kid knows when to keep his mouth shut." He stubbed his cigarette out and dropped it where he stood, adding to the multitude of butts littering the yard. "You wouldn't catch me dead bringin' Evie into the business, I'm at least gonna give myself that."

"Remind me why you're still here?" I groaned, pressing one hand up to my temple; Steve's voice registered to my ears like a mosquito's whine, and I could feel a headache starting to build. "You got your pills, I got three brothers to tell me off already—"

"Man, I ain't Two-Bit— I ain't got no kid sisters to get all sentimental about, and I don't really want you to be mine." He cut this off with a meaningful look. "I just want you to quit findin' trouble 'cause I'm sick an' tired of seein' Soda's hangdog face all the time, wondering what happened to you. Really kills the mood."

I burst out laughing. "At least you're an honest person," I sputtered, wiping tears from the corners of my eyes, "I don't see a lot of them these days." I included myself in that statement. "I gotta go, need to get rid of some shit before the state shows up."

"Dally let you walk home by yourself?"

"He don't _let_ me do anythin'," I said, looking up at him through my eyelashes, in a way I liked to think was teasing. "He don't own me."

Steve shook his head. "Ain't safe to be wandering 'round all by your lonesome no more, especially not if you're a broad. 'Sides—" he gave me a rare grin— "Soda told me to make sure you got home safe and sound. Wouldn't want you to be pettin' puppies for too long at the animal shelter and miss out on Miz Edwards."

I cussed him out for the next block.

* * *

Dallas, Rose, and I sat around one table. Nobody wanted to blink first.

"Where are your _parents_ , young man?" Rose finally broke the silence. "I can't imagine how they let you carry on like this—"

Dallas smacked the piece of chew in the corner of his mouth. "Mom OD'd on horse," he said, a smug grin slowly spreading across his face. "Dad gave it to her."

I hated the way I looked— my hair stiffly pinned back behind my face, wearing a dress that cost more than Darry's truck, minimal, _classy_ makeup on. I felt like the kind of girl Rose wanted me to be, like I'd just stepped out of a Macy's catalogue. Meanwhile, Dally hadn't so much as bothered to put a clean shirt on, and I could smell him from where I sat, stale sweat and smoke and too much men's deodorant. I wasn't sure if I admired his defiance or wished he'd taken a shower before coming.

"You're a terrible influence on my niece," Rose said like she wanted to upturn his plate of chicken marsala onto his head. "She's been arrested, she's hangin' around on the street with a bunch of thugs, she's throwin' away her entire future on you like her mother threw hers away on her father. And now you're surprised her social worker thinks she'd be better off in Lubbock with me?"

"Lady—" I could tell he was tempted to say 'bitch'— "I dunno what your deal is, but she don't want to fuckin' live with you _nowhere_. She belongs with her own kind. Greasers."

"Greasers?" She'd placed imaginary quotes around the word; I doubted she'd ever heard it before. "Jasmine belongs with responsible family, who can actually take care of her. But I'm not arguin' about parenting with a seventeen-year-old JD." She threw her hair back like a princess adjusting her crown, her tone reminiscent of every social worker and do-gooder I'd ever seen look at my brothers and my daddy. _A seventeen-year-old JD_. From her perspective, there wasn't anything else about him; that was where his past and future collided.

Slowly, defiantly, Dallas leaned back in his chair and spit the piece of chew out onto the floor. "Maybe I'll get her in my car and drive her back to New York with me, how would you like that?"

I tried to imagine that, going back to New York with him, like my mama had hopped in a car with my daddy and cruised on down to Tulsa. I couldn't, and I realized that was because he didn't mean a word of what he was saying, he was just shooting his mouth off to get a reaction out of her. And Rose went right for the bait.

"You're almost eighteen, aren't you, Dallas?" He gave her the briefest of nods in response. "Won't you like the sentence for transporting a minor across state lines."

"Oh, darlin', if you knew what I been in for, you wouldn't try to threaten me with a lil' prison time. I got nicknames for every officer in town." He rose from his chair with an obnoxious screech. "There a john in this joint?"

Eyes narrowed, she jerked her thumb down the hall.

"I'm sorry," I told her miserably, resting my head in a cradle of elbows— my usually sharp tongue had shriveled inside my mouth, failing me when I needed it most. "He ain't always so bad."

I'd known that was what the social worker would want, had been angling for since she'd found Rose's name in the phone book. I still hadn't been prepared for the judgement to come down. _I'm sorry, Jasmine, but I think this little experiment has gone on for long enough. A girl has no place bein' raised by her twenty-year-old brother._

She patted me on the hand, her fingers cold. "It's all right, sweetheart. I know this is a big adjustment for everyone, it's gonna take a while to adjust."

I wanted to ask her about the picture I'd found of her and my parents, the one where she'd been just a kid and everything seemed okay between them, but then I noticed Dallas had sure been taking a leak for a while. Muttering some excuse, I took off after him.

"What the hell— Dallas!" I hissed as I caught him red-handed, rummaging through her medicine cabinet. "You're supposed to be eatin' dinner, not robbin' my aunt blind."

"Don't tell me what to do." He tempered his words with a patronizing smirk. "This woman's a fucking headcase, Christ. Worse than Angela's mama."

I recognized some of the names from Uncle Gene's shit. Alprazolam. Barbiturates for going to sleep. Amphetamines for waking up.

Lithium?

His fists curled up. "Wouldn't a judge like to know what kind of pills her crazy ass is poppin'."


	22. Rebel Without a Cause

Funnily enough, the reign of Cool Darry didn't end with me getting arrested. It ended with _Soda_ getting arrested.

"The hell do you mean, I'm _grounded?"_

"Means you can't go out, genius." Darry slapped the keys down on the counter as he stormed in, Soda hot on his heels; I blearily rubbed the sleep out of my eyes as I stumbled into the hallway, the clock reading four A.M. "Seems a lil' _superfluous_ to say that, though, 'cause it's not like you can go anywhere after you crashed your fucking truck into a fucking tree."

"For Chrissakes—" Soda kicked his shoes off with enough force to leave a black mark on the wallpaper. "You're blowin' this whole thing outta proportion."

"Blowin' this whole thing—" Darry spun around to face him, his entire body tense with rage. "I had to get up at the crack of dawn to haul your sorry ass home, 'cause my kid brother's drag racin' down the Ribbon, and you got the nerve to tell me I'm overreactin' here?"

"I ain't one of your _kids_ , so quit talkin' down to me." I'd heard variations on the phrase a million times over the past eight months, mostly said with a wry grin, but there wasn't an ounce of humor to Soda now. "We need the money— I wasn't just doin' it for kicks."

"You sure as shit ain't grown, neither, at least not accordin' to the state of Oklahoma." Darry studied him. "Too bad you didn't win nothin', 'cause now we're in the hole for your ticket _and_ repairs. You still think it was worth it?"

Soda muttered something along the lines of "you ain't my daddy," but not far enough under his breath that Darry couldn't catch the current of malice flowing through his words.

"Boy, if Dad was here, he'd straighten you out somethin' fierce— not that you'd ever run your mouth to him like this." He grabbed Soda by the collar and hauled him closer. "'Cept he ain't, 'cause another drunk dumbass killed him with an eighteen-wheeler."

I would've been less surprised to see a unicorn prancing around on the front lawn than Darry coming down on Soda, especially with such force. I wasn't enjoying it half as much as I thought I would.

Soda shrugged himself free, his fists clenched; I didn't want to see them go at each other, but they were more brothers than not, and it seemed like the inevitable conclusion. "You shut up— you _shut_ your goddamn mouth," he snarled, stumbling forward without Darry to hold him steady. "You can't just have it both ways, sittin' me at the kids' table when you want, takin' my paycheck when you need it. Thought you'd given up on the parentin', anyway— that's what the state said."

Darry got close enough to his face that their noses almost touched, certainly close enough to smell the Jim Beam pouring off him like radiation off Hiroshima. "Buddy, if you think I'm gonna sit back while you cruise into your grave at sixteen, you got another thing coming."

Soda tried to shove him away, but just ended up elbowing him in the ribcage instead. "Lay off him," Ponyboy dared to say before things could dissolve into a full-blown brawl, "ain't it bad enough he busted his truck up?"

Darry stooped down to his level, resting his hands on his thighs. "If you don't like the way I'm runnin' things around here, little man, you just can go—"

"Get out?"

The tension and drama of the moment drained out of the room, like a tub with the plug yanked— just leaving the four of us standing around, a family that barely resembled one anymore. "We've already as good as lost Jasmine," Darry finally said, running a hand along the top of the couch. "Don't think it's too much to ask that you two stay in line."

He wasn't about to go into debt to hire a lawyer and _maybe_ win custody of his difficult, mouthy fifteen-year-old sister, and nobody would fault him for it. I could imagine the massive calculator in his head spitting out figures, how much cheaper it would be to feed and clothe just two brothers and how much better he understood them, and my lip curled in contempt.

He sighed with his tongue pressed up to the gap between his front teeth, a feature I wished we didn't share. "Go to bed," he told no one in particular. "Just go to bed, Jesus. I'm tired of all this shit."

Ponyboy obediently shuffled back down the hall, but instead of following him, Soda slipped into my room and collapsed onto my bed. I felt ambivalent about his presence, a coldbloodedness that was unfamiliar to me when it came to him; I'd grown used to dreading and disliking Darry, but since the night I'd eavesdropped on him at the kitchen table, something had broken between us. "Get your nasty socks off my blankets," I muttered, trying to get a few more elusive snatches of sleep before morning arrived. "You need a map to your own bed?"

He flopped belly-down, his socks remaining right where they were; I didn't recall ever having shared a bed with him when we were younger, the way Pony still did, and his weight beside me was foreign and unsettling. "Thought I could score some easy cash," he said, his voice slurred with fatigue and alcohol. "Boy, guess I was wrong about that."

"You could've died, Darry's just worried," I said, rolling over to face the wall. "Be careful, stupid. We ain't got no money for another funeral."

"Jas..." He pulled out a bag from the pocket of his cargo shorts, the band of his Hanes sticking out from the top as they settled loosely on his hips; the contents gleamed even in the darkness, the white in sharp contrast to the shadows that cloaked the room. "Listen. Can you give this to Dally?"

"I thought you wasn't gonna sell drugs," I said, not that I had any room to judge. "Thought we didn't need none of Dally's blood money, neither."

"Electric's due in a couple days, we're gonna come up short." He gave me a pleading look. "I know, I'm a lousy hypocrite, but one of my buddies said he'd help me out... just this once. Please, Jas, tell him I'll owe him whatever he wants, but we've gotta come up with twenty bucks from somewhere."

One of his buddies had decided to give him a bag of _cocaine_? I'd hardly seen the stuff before in person— it was wildly expensive, much more difficult to purchase than even the purest H around these parts. I didn't even know many Socs who could afford it. "Okay," I still said with a long exhale, taking it out of his hands. "I'll see what I can do. But this better be the last time. Daddy wouldn't like it."

Unlike his reaction to Darry, he didn't try to deck me for summoning our daddy's ghost, but his stricken face said everything for him as he rolled away from me and planted the balls of his feet on the floor. "It's just the _one_ time," he said. "I promise. Don't you know me at all?"

The more I turned it over in my hands, examining the consistency of the powder inside, the less my initial suspicion abated. Using the tip of my fingernail, I shoved the tiniest bit up my nose, and then I had to shove my fist inside my mouth so that my laughter wouldn't bring the brothers Curtis running.

Someone had given Soda a bag of crushed aspirin, and he didn't have the good sense to tell the difference.

* * *

"You're too _timid_ , Johnnycake." I wrinkled my nose ever-so-slightly as I flipped through the wad of cash. "That's your problem. You don't push it and they know they can stiff you."

I regretted the words once his face visibly crumpled; he ducked his head, his copper-brown cheeks flushed dark. "Man, I ain't exactly got a lot of practice, okay?"

I stretched my feet out on the dash, then cussed as a spring from the seat jutted into my back; Johnny's car was the biggest pile of shit I'd ever had the misfortune of cruising around in, with a busted sunroof and a rusty hole in the floor you could see the asphalt through, but I supposed it was better than hoofing it to the Dingo. "You just need to get some more, then," I said, trying to sound as encouraging as Mom had when she'd taught piano. "Look for easy targets— you know, sloppy drunks, girls by themselves, sloppy, drunk girls by themselves—"

"Fuck." Johnny slammed his palm down on the horn, making me jump, all the blood drained from his face. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuck_."

"What? Who's that?" I peered over his shoulder to get a look— it was a handsome, dark-haired boy around Soda's age, wearing an expensive-looking Madras shirt, gold rings gleaming on his fingers. "He a Soc?"

He snorted like a startled horse, the scar on his forehead standing out even more than usual. "Yeah, that's a _Soc_ ," he managed to choke out. "The Soc that jumped me. Bob Sheldon."

"What the _fuck_ is he doin' down here?" The Socs didn't usually come around the Dingo or Jay's unless they planned on starting shit (not difficult, at the Dingo), but this one seemed tame, most importantly away from any kind of posse. "You got your blade on you, right?" I scanned the area for hostile witnesses. "If you go gut him, ain't nobody gonna call the fuzz, not in this neighborhood."

"I ain't got that in me, Jas." He plucked a piece of loose leather off the steering wheel. "I ain't got it in me to kill someone... I can't do that. Guess you think I'm real weak, huh?"

"No," I croaked, "I don't. But we gotta get him back. We can't just let him walk away like nothin' happened." Too bad one of us was hyperventilating at the sight of him, while the other was a skinny teenage girl who barely knew how to use the knife in her pocket. If Dallas had been there, we would've been smuggling him out of town before he could be charged with murder, but he was off burglarizing on the West side.

Then inspiration struck me, like a lightning bolt coming down from the heavens.

"He's a rich boy," I said slowly, a bitter smirk spreading across my face as I swung my legs out of Johnny's passenger seat. "They like cocaine, don't they?"

It was the kind of trick you could really only pull once. But I damn well didn't intend on _Bob Sheldon_ becoming a repeat customer.

He had 'I Got You Babe' playing as he leaned against his shiny new Mustang, the kind no greaser could drive unless they sold a kidney; he looked around with an amusement that bordered on contempt. I checked the backseat, but he really had arrived alone, nobody laying in wait. I could also clock, from one glance, that he was rip-roaring drunk.

"Hey," Bob said, perfectly pleasantly, but I saw the way his gaze dropped right down to the low cut of my blouse. "You're Soda Curtis's sister, right? Think I've seen you around at school before."

This wasn't usually how my conversations with Soc boys went— I couldn't believe he'd gone a whole minute without calling me white trash, a bitch, or a dirty slut who could perform (insert graphic sex act here). "Yeah, Jasmine. I think he's in the grade below you— or, I mean, he was. He dropped out."

"That's too bad." He didn't look bored at all; he had this charismatic aura that convinced me he was hanging on to every word I was saying. "After your parents died?"

"Yeah." My stomach swooped unpleasantly— I wanted to ask how he knew about it, then I remembered there'd been a lengthy obituary in the World. "But I didn't come here to talk about that."

"I have a girlfriend, but, I mean—" He gave me the dirtiest wink I'd ever received in my life, and that was saying something. "If we can make it quick. Not about to say no to a hot little piece like you."

He had me by the elbow damn fast, but I stood my ground and shook him off. God, as _if_. "That ain't what I had in mind," I said, and when his face darkened, I whipped out the dime bag. "You wanna buy a gram?"

"Holy shit." He rubbed his eye with his knuckle, then took a closer look. "Where'd you get somethin' like this from?"

"A girl has her ways," I said in my dumbest, perkiest voice, and realized, to my immense horror, that I sounded just like Sandy did around Soda. "I'm gonna cut you a real good deal, handsome, just ten bucks."

I counted on him not being smart enough to test any of it out before handing over the cash, and I was right, that a smug rich boy like him would throw money around like it was nothing: he pocketed the bag and pulled a ten dollar bill out of his fancy leather wallet, without so much as a wince. "Buy yourself somethin' nice," he said, "you could probably use the dough."

Before I could bristle at that little remark, he leaned over and planted a whiskey-stained kiss right on my lips, steadying himself with a hand on my ass. "I meant it," he said, "I know you're a greasy chick and all, but you can crash one of my parties any time. You got the best rack I ever _seen_."

If I hadn't known he was a monster, I might have even liked him. As it was, I hoped he got a headache soon.

* * *

Johnny and I wandered around for a couple hours after that, sprawling out in other people's backseats and sticking our heads in windows, making a few easy fistfuls of cash. You could hear endless streams of gossip down at the Dingo, but one common thread was the way gangs were starting to coalesce into factions— River Kings against Ramirez (and Shepard, by proxy), Tiber siding with us, Brumly leaning towards the Kings. It was the kind of thing that had hardly been seen in Tulsa before, a city small enough that most gangs were friends who rolled together— I almost couldn't believe my own boyfriend had machinated it.

(The Socs were a wildcard, cruising up and down the city with free rein. They'd attack anything that looked like a greaser and not think twice, I knew that much for a fact.)

"You wanna bet on the fight?" Wayne Jacob nudged me in the ribs with his elbow, knocking me out of my thoughts— he was your typical downtown hood, in a gang of his buddies that loosely answered to Tiber, but a solid source of dirt. "I got three bucks in the pool, it's gonna be a good one."

"What's the fight?" I asked, slipping further down in the seat; Wayne was plenty generous with the booze now that we'd given him a few reds, and I'd had more than I should have from the flask on his hip. Johnny slouched beside me, painfully sober and aware of his surroundings, looking like he was just waiting until Dally arrived and took him home. "It better not be two Brumly boys gettin' up to some 'bop action'. They ain't got enough brain cells to spare for those kicks."

"Nah," Wayne said, "Curly Shepard's goin' up against this King, calls himself Spooky. He's gonna get his ass kicked," he added with obvious relish, "kid's fifteen, and the Shepards ain't got great builds to begin with. Might knock Tim down a few pegs."

I whipped my head around so fast that some of my hair flew into my mouth; sure enough, a chanting crowd had gathered around a patch of stained concrete, their fists up. "C'mon—" I tugged at the sleeve of Johnny's t-shirt— "we better go see what all the fuss is about."

Wayne was right, Curly didn't stand a chance, I thought grimly as I elbowed my way to the front; he looked small and skinny, panting hard, blood already streaming out of a cut on his forehead. Meanwhile, Spooky loomed over him, his brow clean of sweat, the edge of his smirk sharper than his switchblade. "Your sister's a dirty whore," he taunted, "Joe's been usin' her like a tissue, lets all of us take turns—"

With a deranged howl, a noise I could hardly believe had left human lungs, Curly charged at him and kicked the backs of his knees in, bringing Spooky crashing down to the ground. The fight was over as fast as it had erupted.

He pressed the tip of his knife into the side of his neck, his boot leaving a grimy mark on his chest; I wanted to shut my eyes and turn away, genuinely afraid he might kill him, despite the crowd of witnesses. "Don't say one fucking word about my sister again, you got that, _ese_?" he hissed, drawing a bead of blood; I had to give Spooky credit, he didn't flinch, even managing to maintain a bored, calm expression. "Not unless you want a real pretty ruby necklace."

Spooky gave a jerky nod, the blade digging deeper into his skin with even the tiniest movement. Curly spit on him.

"Good fight, huh?" Curly called out to me, once he'd extracted himself from all his buddies milling around— offering a slap on the back, a beer, a share of the pot— a sick grin cracking the dried blood on his face. "Them King bastards, they talk shit, they better know they're gonna get hit."

"That was pretty tuff, Curly," I felt generous enough to say, and his smile softened, and I felt like I was standing in a patch of sunlight for a second. "Glad I didn't bet against you."

"Shepard." That voice could've sliced through sheet metal. "The hell you think you're playin' at?"

Dallas stumbled onto the scene with Johnny quick to follow, a nasty bruise on his left cheekbone, wearing an even nastier scowl. "Is he botherin' you?" He squeezed my shoulder, pulling me close to him, but there was more possession than affection in the gesture. "He won't be in a couple minutes, promise."

"She not allowed to talk to anyone without your say-so?" Curly resembled his older brother a lot in that moment, his upper lip curling above his teeth. "Cool it already, this is just gettin' sad."

"You look fucking pathetic sniffin' after my girl, you know that?" Dallas stared down at him like he was an ant about to be crushed. "I get you ain't never seen pussy outside of Tim's magazines, but—"

"I seen hers."

Most of the good will I'd developed towards Curly evaporated right then; Dallas pulled his fist back, ready to launch it right into Curly's face, when Johnny grabbed him by the shoulder and wrestled him down.

"Dally, c'mon—" He shook his head, and the two of them exchanged a glance that required no words, and Dallas's arm slackened. "He ain't worth it, man."

"Kid, you're the closest thing I got to a moral compass, you know that? I'd be doin' time for sure if you wasn't around." He let out a low chuckle. "Where's Angela?" he then said with calculated boredom, craning his neck to spot her curly black head in the crowd. "I gotta tell her somethin'."

"Stay the hell away from my sister!"

" _Who's_ he supposed to stay away from now?" Angela said, sauntering over to us with a beer can in her hand. "And I really hope that ain't your blood, Curls."

Curly grabbed her by the arm; she didn't try to resist, just gave him a blank stare, like her face was a slate that had been wiped clean. "We're goin' home— _goddammit_ , you're goin' home," he said, but he hadn't inherited Tim's ability to issue orders, and it showed. "You're just a kid."

"She's not goin' nowhere with you." Dally tilted his head like he was talking to a retarded toddler. "She's comin' with me, ain't you, Angel? And neither is Jasmine."

"Angela?"

She drained the last few drops from the can, then crushed it under her heel. "Go home yourself, Curly," she said, "I'm busy here."

One side of Curly's mouth formed a tight grimace, but he let go of her. "Tim was right," he said, "you _are_ turnin' out just like Ma."

Rage flashed in Angela's dark eyes, so cold and powerful I was surprised it didn't topple Curly as he walked away, but it vanished before she could say anything in return. "What do you want, Dallas?" she asked, one hand on her hip.

"That any way to talk to me?" Dallas said, affecting mock hurt. "Ain't nothin' much, baby girl—"

"Quit gassin' me up. You ain't half as charming as you think."

He pulled the most expensive bracelet I'd even seen out of his pocket, the diamond in the center sparkling in the silver casing, and her breath hitched. "You gonna fence it?" she asked, all shrewd businesswoman on the outside, but I could clock how she really felt. For a girl who'd spent her whole life in poverty, that bracelet was worth a lot more than any price it could be sold for.

"It's yours." She immediately stuck her slim wrist out, let him do the clasp. "Just do me a favor. Make sure to let Tim know who gave it to you."

Her reflection was murky and distorted in the pool of gasoline at my feet, the lines of her face showing a faint disappointment. Had she been waiting around for Dallas to show her favor for her own sake, give her a gift without strings attached? "Thanks," she said like she'd had more raising than she really had, "don't think I'd be able to hide it if I tried."

My lungs burned with the effort of not saying anything, my protests dying in my windpipe. On an intellectual level, I tried to tell myself, it was all Dallas needling Tim and Curly— their baby sister outfitted in his fenced goods. A way to manipulate Angela, spoiled and willful at best, into continuing to do his bidding. It all made sense.

But he hadn't let go of me this whole time, and his eyes said something else altogether. _Be careful. I can replace you as easily as I snapped you up._

* * *

When I came in through my window and found Sylvia on my bed, flipping through one of my Cosmos, I nearly fell right out again.

"Jasmine..." She sat cross-legged, her back too ramrod-straight to be comfortable, and I knew she'd been laying in wait for me. "What are you doin'?"

"Angela and I were down at the Ribbon," I said in the careful way I'd mastered; sparse, the core containing the truth, leaving out any incriminating details. I even looked her in the eye. Why bother to mention something as insignificant as the thirty dollars we'd made between us there, pushing grass?

"Right," she snorted nastily, "I forgot. You're best friends with Angela Shepard now."

Her hair was wet, droplets coming off the tips and leaving dark spots on my bedspread. She smelled like Mom's lavender soap. I wanted to push her onto the floor. "Maybe I am," I said, swaying, too drunk for the complicated maneuvers required for this conversation. I was long overdue to step on a landmine. "What's it to you?"

"You're an idiot, you know that?" The bluntness was enough to make me step back a couple of paces, but part of me relished it, the brutal honesty she was about to throw my way; I never functioned well with wading through bullshit. "I know you're sellin' drugs, it don't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, even if Johnny hadn't told me. You're gonna end up goin' inside just like your daddy."

"Jealous he didn't want to include you?" I spit the line out like a machine, boring even myself with my own predictability, the mind-numbing sameness of this situation. It didn't matter what I said to her; we were just following a script, saying what we were supposed to say. Deep down, I suspected she didn't really care one way or another if I _did_ get arrested, and I sure as shit didn't care what she thought about me anymore.

"Jas, what are you doin'?" Her nails dug into the thin skin on the top of my hand when she reached out for me; I jerked away from her, but the imprints still remained. With all her makeup washed off in the shower, she seemed younger and more innocent to me than she had in years. "What _happened_ with us?"

"You left me in the basement of a frat to get raped."

There. No more lies, no more tiptoeing around the truth, no more wondering how she'd react, with disgust or pity or horror. I sure didn't have to wonder what she'd say— her mouth hung open, enough that I could see the back of her throat, and she blinked at me dumbly. I thought she might throw up all over the floor, from the greenish tinge her skin took on.

I looked just like Angela, acted like her too. "Now get the hell out of my house."

I made sure she'd grabbed her bag and slammed the door before I started to cry.


	23. Age of Consent

When she emerged out of the early morning fog, I thought I was dreaming, hallucinating maybe— it was four or five, the sun casting pale light down, an hour only my insomniac ass could possibly spend awake. "What are you doin' here?" I blew a puff of smoke out, the porch littered with cigarette butts Darry was always nagging us to stop flicking all over the lawn. "Don't tell me you got kicked out too."

Then I saw the bruises covering her throat, fresh ones in unmistakable blue and purple, and my heart started pounding inside my chest like a jackhammer. "Angela... Angela, fuck, what happened to you?" I asked, though I think I already knew before I said anything. "Who did this?"

She wasn't crying, her face instead eerily still, like she was asleep with her eyes open. "I went to go see Joe. He didn't so much wanna see me."

Her hands were trembling violently— she had to sit on them to stop it, right beside me, the rest of her body clenched up tight. "I need a smoke," she demanded as I gaped at her. "I need a smoke so fuckin' bad."

I obliged, flicked my lighter once she'd clamped it between her teeth, but when she tried to cradle it and take a drag, it fell from her grip— cussing, she stubbed it out before she set my entire porch on fire. "Well, ain't that great," she said with enough bleak nihilism in her voice to put Sartre to shame. "Ain't that just great."

"Why the hell did you go back down there?" I regretted the words right after I said them; what was done had already long since been done, and she'd nearly paid for it with her life. "He's got a hit out on your uncles, on Tim, you must've known he wouldn't be welcomin' you with open arms—"

"I did somethin' bad, Jas, I did somethin' real bad." She let out a half-hysterical laugh, curling her knees up to her chest. "I had to, though, he was gonna kill me. He would've killed me in a hot minute."

Icy dread settled right behind my breastbone. "What do you mean?"

When she turned to face me, tears had pooled in her eyes, a picture of anguish; she looked younger and smaller to me than she ever had. "I told him... I never said anything to Tío Luis, 'bout what we had goin' on. It was all you."

I slammed my fist into one of the wooden beams that supported the porch. A scrape on my knuckle started sluggishly bleeding as the pain spread through my hand, and I still didn't feel any better. " _Dammit_ , Angela, didn't you give yourself a lucky break. Now he's gonna hunt _me_ down like a bloodhound and dump my body in the river."

He knew my name, and though the two of us had hardly interacted when Angela took me to the Rising Sun, he'd seen enough of me to put that name to a face. My days were officially numbered; I was a marked woman. I had to keep repeating the concept over and over to try to grasp it.

"Sometimes I just wanna die." Her voice was so raspy and soft, I had to strain to hear it. "You know... maybe not even die. Just lie down real quiet underground, 'til I feel better, it might not be so bad."

Well, I could sure relate to that one, and I offered her a harsh snort in return. I didn't know what kept me going, down a path that only promised more pain, more complications, more impossible choices. It wasn't the thought of my brothers' grief, not fear of death or hope for a brighter future. If anything, it was the macabre desire to see what came next, like tuning into the next episode of a TV show you watch out of habit.

"What the hell am I gonna do?" I groaned, putting my head in my hands and threading my fingers through my unbrushed hair. If my daddy was still alive, he would've had more than enough clout to protect me, but as Luis had made clear, a girl without a father or sufficiently strapped brothers was as good as a hermit crab without a shell. "Tell my auntie she better _really_ hit the gas on tryna get me down to Lubbock?"

I wanted to throw myself at this spoiled, selfish girl, batter her with my fists until she saw sense, but I couldn't; hadn't she been beaten down enough? Hadn't that made her what she was today?

She buried her face in my neck; my skin grew wet, and for a wild moment I thought she might be bleeding or sweating, until I placed a hand on her shoulderblade and felt it tremble. "I can't go home yet," she said, her breath catching in her throat. "Tim an' Curly, I dunno what I'm gonna tell them, I dunno how I'm gonna cover this up—"

I couldn't bring myself to push her away. We sat there until the sun crept up past the horizon; it was the first time I'd really felt close to her.

* * *

I didn't go to find Sylvia, Sylvia found me, hunched over my history textbook in a futile attempt at making up some work— Mrs. Gibbons, a shriveled old crone who'd known and loathed Soda, was keeping me in during my lunch periods to do it, but she never really stuck around to supervise. Today, I wished she had.

"Jasmine..." She wandered over to my desk, tantalizingly close enough to the window that I could smell the summer air outside, and sat down on the one in front of me. "That's so fucked up. What happened to you."

"You think?" I barely looked up at her, scribbling down an answer about the Gettysburg Address. "Mrs. Gibbons is gonna come back soon. You oughta go."

"Who else knows?" she pressed, undeterred by the urgency in my tone. "Didn't you tell your brothers?"

"Dallas knows, and Angela, and I guess you now." I wished I could flick her off that desk like a stray ant. "Keep your voice down, for Chrissakes."

She shook out her mane of long hair, the sun catching on it, and twirled a strand around her index finger. "They wouldn't just let him get away with it... they'd kill him if they found out."

My face cracked with a rueful grin. "They would never believe it."

"Jasmine—"

"And I wouldn't really want to visit them in Big Mac if they did. So you'd better not say nothin'."

"I don't get why you didn't tell _me_ , though." She chewed on her lip; I'd told her it looked babyish, back when we were kids, but she'd never managed to kick the nervous habit. "Why'd you say I _left_ you there?"

"You notice someone was missin' when you crawled on home that night? Girl you came there with? Maybe if you'd paid any attention—"

It was a cruel thing to say, one of the cruelest things I'd ever said in a lifetime of running my mouth, but I didn't have enough of a conscience left to regret my words. If I could transmute just the tiniest bit of my horror onto her—

"It ain't my fuckin' job to babysit you, is it?" She was raising her voice now, turning the offense back on me. "Maybe _you_ shouldn't have had so much to drink, maybe you shouldn't have gone upstairs with him..."

"Maybe you should shut your fucking mouth before I bust your teeth in."

I was so angry I shook, my veins flowing with battery acid instead of blood; even the threat sounded shaky, not up to my usual standard. She thought she was real fucking clever, didn't she, telling me something the rest of the world hadn't already come up with. Something I hadn't already told myself long ago.

"You just... you just think you're judge, jury, and executioner, don't you?" She laughed. "You decide someone's done you wrong and then you bring down the axe. That's why you took Dallas— you don't care about him, you just wanted to punish me."

"Don't flatter yourself." I stood the textbook up vertically on the desk, erecting a barrier between the two of us. "It was like takin' candy from a baby."

"You're not anything special." She shouldered her purse, determined to get the last word in. "He can never stick to one broad at a time, he's just lookin' for a new thrill. Bet he's already gettin' bored of you."

After I was sure she'd left, I groaned and pressed my cheek against the cool wood of the desk, lacking the energy to raise my head again.

I'd never made a very good victim. My teeth were far too sharp for that.

* * *

I walked up the four flights of stairs to my aunt's apartment that afternoon, dragging my feet the whole way; I had to spend one day a week with her, it was court-ordered, but that didn't mean I couldn't fantasize about skipping out every time. I hated listening to her prattle on about different dress patterns and hair designs this season, I hated trying to choke down diet-friendly dinners straight out of Redbook with liberal gulps of water, and I especially hated the sleepless nights I'd spent in the pink, frilly bedroom she'd crafted for a girl half my age, longing for a smoke. Familiarity really did just breed contempt, in my case.

(I still hadn't figured out how to confront her about the pills Dallas found, or if it was even my place to comment at all— like I had any room to judge when I'd sold half those damn pills and taken close to all of them. Maybe she was as crazy as Uncle Gene, maybe she was just your garden variety closet druggie, but either way, it was the first thing we'd ever had in common.)

"You wanna know how you can make things right, you son of a bitch?" smacked right into my eardrums once I came through the door, promising a more exciting afternoon than usual. Well, if there was one thing I knew growing up where I did, it was marital problems. Our neighbors regularly gathered 'round to watch Mr. and Mrs. Cade beat the shit out of each other with broomsticks, Sylvia's old lady couldn't keep a man for longer than a month, and my own mama had made a bonfire in the yard and burned my daddy's clothes after he went to the slammer— I was happy to help out.

"You can let me see Kevin, for starters." Rose twirled the phone cord around her finger, so tight I was afraid it was going to snap. "But of course, that's just how it is, ain't it, you think that your mother's a better parent than me. Some geriatric cunt with a superiority complex 'cause she's richer than God—"

He said something I couldn't hear on the other end, and her entire demeanor shifted in the space of a blink. "Baby," she said, her voice as soft and smoothly flowing as honey, "baby, let's don't fight, okay? You said that you're comin' home soon— no, I can't go back to Lubbock, I'm in Tulsa, remember? Dealin' with Jasmine."

He muttered something else indecipherable, and Rose's brows knitted together with every word that came out of his mouth. "My _niece_ , Jasmine, for the last time, can't you remember nothin' important? She's in a real bind, her social worker's frantic."

I caught a few staticky scraps as he raised his voice, 'orphan', 'charity case', the distinct phrase 'what the fuck'. It didn't make me feel very secure about my future. "No, she's not livin' in a girls' home, she's with her older brother Darrel— because it's completely unfit, that's why. There's no money and no supervision over there, and they're rubbin' shoulders with the worst kinds of hoods, drug dealers and thugs. Just the sort of place my brother would've found appealing, I suppose."

Every time she talked shit about my daddy, I wanted to deck her. Every time she ran that polished little mouth, like she hadn't grown up in a trash heap herself, like the only thing separating the two of them wasn't the paleness of her skin—

"Of course you're going to love her, she's a real sweetheart." Had this woman ever _met_ me? "I have to go," she added, turning around to see my figure in the doorway, "she's here now. Do you wanna talk to her?"

Evidently he did not, because she put the phone back on the hook a second later, the corners of her mouth starting to turn down again. "Hi, honey," she said, "that was Sven. My husband," she added like I hadn't figured that much out. "Just preparin' him for when you come home."

(I'd stopped giving my illicit gains to the household; instead, I slept on top of it like a dragon hoarding their wealth. I was saving it for myself, for when I ended up in Lubbock. My aunt was a very, very wealthy woman, thanks to her very, very wealthy husband, but I'd learned to prepare for the worst, and this situation was no exception. If I needed to run—)

"Did you ever see this picture?" I pushed it across the kitchen table to her, the corners even more wrinkled and torn from where I'd shoved it in my purse. Not the most polite greeting, but I'd spent enough time examining it, wondering about the circumstances. I needed answers.

"I remember this," she said, turning it over in her hands. "Lord, this was right before your mama and daddy skipped town— look, Frannie's still got those gorgeous Lauren Bacall curls. Did she keep them?"

I self-consciously patted the top of my head; Rose wasn't the first person to say she'd looked like Lauren Bacall, but good heavens, that daughter got hit with the Indian stick, didn't she? "Yeah... did you go down there a lot? To see them?"

"Not a lot," she said, "my daddy didn't want me goin', I had to sneak out. He was ashamed, you know, havin' a whole separate Indian family in New Mexico, and here's Darrel just cruisin' on over." She let out a bright, tinkly laugh. "Your mama fussed over me like a little mother hen, Lord— well, you can see me, all knees and elbows, in that godawful getup. It was still the Depression at my place, what can I say. She'd give me food wrapped up to take back."

"Did y'all really have that little money?" I asked, though it wasn't the most polite question in the world.

"Oh, honey, my daddy drank up every cent in the house. And my mama... she wasn't quite all there, you know, especially after he died. We had it pretty rough until I got married."

"I'm sorry." I played with the collar of my blouse; I wasn't used to pitying her, seeing her as an actual person and not some eldritch abomination trying to snatch me from my real home. I didn't much like the feeling. "It's hard, not havin' a lot to go around."

 _My brother decided I was an acceptable casualty, to free up more resources._

"I just wanted you to know that it's not because you're Indian, why I don't like your daddy," she said, her hands steepled in front of her. "It's not that at all. It's because the day he left Lubbock was the last day he ever thought about me."

* * *

In hindsight, I should've realized that something was wrong with Angela's demeanor from the start, a painfully artificial construction that anyone could've seen through— the scarf draped around her neck, the newfound cheery attitude, the graceless flirtation from a girl who flirted for a living. It was all designed to put us off our guard, long enough for her to disappear out stage left.

I can't judge myself too harshly, though. Angela's entire personality was a construction, and the cornerstone was being judged worthy by men. I shouldn't have been surprised when the whole thing fell apart at the seams.

"Hey, Jas," she said as I clattered in the door, with the perkiness of a girl in a bubblegum commercial, "Pony and I were just talkin'."

She was sucking on a cherry lollipop, pulling it out of her mouth with a loud smack; the tips of Ponyboy's ears were bright red, and he was looking over at the window, down the street, rather than at the two buttons she'd undone. For the life of me, I couldn't imagine what she'd seen in my youngest brother, apart from them being the same age— he was soft, thoughtful, sensitive, everything anathema to her kind. Maybe she was attracted to the idea of a man who would never hurt her. Maybe she just wanted to take him apart.

Too bad that out of all the guys in the world, she'd picked one of the most oblivious. "I dunno how to hotwire a car, honest," Ponyboy said, still desperately trying to avoid staring at her breasts. "Darry would kill me if I got up to anythin' like that. He don't even want me fightin' in rumbles."

"Oh, c'mon," Angela said with a breathy little snort, "considerin' what the other kids in this house are gettin' up to, Lord, you oughta at least be able to commit a lil' robbery—"

"Shut up," I said easily, "he don't need no encouragement to be gettin' jailed right next to Curly, does he? He's a lot smarter than that."

"She always treat you like that? Like you're some dumb kid?"

Ponyboy gave me a sidelong glance; there was something foreign in his eyes, a hardness and a coldness I'd never seen before, but it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. Maybe I'd even imagined it. "Yeah, she does."

"Don't start with me," I said, trying to keep my voice lighter than I really felt, "we both know you wouldn't last ten minutes in the slammer."

"We startin' a club, Pone." Angela slung an arm around his shoulders; I wondered if she wasn't a little drunk. "Hard done by youngest siblings."

"Oh, please," I snorted, "kid's got me cookin' all his meals and ironin' his socks, and you're callin' him hard done by? Don't know what they're gonna do without their maid around."

It was the wrong thing to say; unlike Soda or Two-Bit, I had a knack for cracking the wrong joke at the wrong time, and this was no exception. Ponyboy twisted his hands together: "Fuck Darry."

"C'mon," I started, ready to spew platitudes I didn't believe myself, "don't be like that, or the next four years are gonna—"

"How else am I supposed to be like, huh?" If he'd been a different kind of guy, tougher, he might've put his fist through the drywall, but instead he just chewed on his bottom lip and stared down at the coffee table. "Everyone can tell Miz Edwards is gonna ship you off to Texas, and what does Darry do, a fat load of nothin'. He won't even get a decent lawyer."

I swished ashes around in my mouth. The truth was that I was becoming difficult, embarrassing, a liability Darry had to account for and constantly end up short, but I couldn't just say that to Ponyboy. I'd always been conscious of being the older sister, the example to follow. "We ain't got no lawyer _money_ ," I finally came out with, "and it'd be a waste, anyway— state was never gonna let me be raised by my twenty-year-old brother." If Uncle Gene hadn't been a raging lunatic and Aunt Rose missing in action, I doubted he would've even gotten the boys.

His expression didn't lighten at all; I gave him a playful nudge with my elbow, moving him over on the lumpy couch cushion. "Ain't like Rose is a serial killer or nothin', she ain't that bad," I said, though she wasn't just _that bad_ , she was worse. "Think 'bout it, you'll have to listen to thirty-three percent less naggin' on a daily basis— at least 'til I come up to visit."

He tried to give me a smile, but it was obviously forced, and the weight of my complicity crashed down on me like a heavy wave. What was I doing, abandoning him to this disaster zone? To one brother with a temper that blazed up like wildfire, to another who cared deeply for him, but was still too reckless and immature to take care of him like he needed?

But my own behavior hadn't really been the deciding factor, the state of Oklahoma had made that much clear— my daddy had sealed my fate a long time ago. We were dangerous, the Curtis children. Bombs set for detonation.

"Sorry to interrupt y'all's sibling bonding moment, but this is gettin' way too depressing," Angela said, pulling a blunt out from her pocket. "Who wants to toke up?"

* * *

"She's in here," I heard as if from a great distance, while I clutched the sink and tried to keep my legs from collapsing under me. "In the hall bathroom. I dunno what she took— mixed—"

Dallas threw the door open, hard enough that it slammed into the wall— Pony hovered behind him, his lips and cheeks so colorless he looked like a consumption victim. "Get outta here," Dallas told him with a rough shove past the threshold, "go anywhere, just get out. If she dies, the fuzz are gonna want to interview everyone, and you don't need to be mixed up in that."

He'd always been terrified of Tulsa's most notorious JD, and squeamish about bodily fluids besides, so he fled out the door without a glance behind him. I didn't know why, panicking, digging my nails into his forearms, I'd screamed for Ponyboy to get Dallas— just figured that ambulances didn't go to this kind of neighborhood, and if he couldn't figure out what to do now, then maybe Angela would have to fall dead.

His facial expression ossified as he caught sight of Angela, lying perfectly still on the bathroom floor, her hands stretched out in front of her. The stench of vomit had hit me before anything else, splattered all over the sink and tub, mixed in with blood—

He hunched down to my level with his palms on his thighs, a Darry-like gesture that would've irritated me had the situation not been so grave. "What the hell happened? She try to kill herself?"

My voice trembled up and down octaves as I spoke, barely able to form coherent sentences in my head— "no, we were smokin' a joint, and then we had a couple drinks, and then she was in the bathroom too long and I thought that was off—"

"Right." He let out a string of cuss words. "Never should've gotten broads mixed up in this. God _dammit_. At least you turned her over, she won't choke on all that puke."

"She's not breathing, she's not breathing—"

"Shut up." The command cracked like a whip, shocking me out of my hysteria. "She needs to go to the hospital."

"We don't have no hospital _money_ ," I continued to babble; I slapped her cheeks, getting no response. "Angela. Angela. _Fuck_."

He bent down to feel her pulse, cradling her limp wrist between his fingers. "She's not dead. But she might be if she don't get her stomach pumped."

I laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed, my ribs aching from the strain, loud enough that I thought Dallas might end up slapping me. Instead, he threw a set of keys at me— I missed, and they clattered against the faucet. "Go rev up the truck," he ordered me, "I'll haul her out in a minute."

She'd never taken his diamond bracelet off. It still glimmered, amongst the piss and the vomit and the blood, in the dim light.


	24. The Unforgiven

The last time I was at a hospital was when my parents died, the hours slowing to a crawl in the ICU, the beeping of the monitors and the smell of antiseptic and the clinical, detached kindness of the nurses all blending into a colorless blur. After every damn member of the Shepard clan showed up to get their two bits in, that was officially downgraded to the second worst experience of my life.

"What the fuck are you tryna pull, huh?"

The fabled matriarch, Mary Magdalene herself, was a tiny, dark woman, with narrow, bloodless lips— I could tell she'd been a beauty when she was younger, just like her daughter, but stress and age had weighed her down, though I doubted she was even forty yet. "This is all your fault," she told Tim, stabbing her finger an inch away from the tip of his nose, "you and your nasty lil' ways, selling Lord knows what on them streets—"

"You wanna blame me for this?" Tim looked like he hadn't slept in days, a coating of stubble on his usually clean-shaven cheeks, his shirt badly wrinkled. "Nice example you been settin', with all that mother's little helper you pop to forget who you brought into the house. Fuckin' whore."

She rubbed her rosary beads, a serene, beatific expression spreading across her face, like the other Mary looking down at her infant son. "I should've aborted you."

Tim's hand swung up as though it had a mind of its own, and for the second it hovered in the air, I was convinced he would bring it crashing down on her. She flinched. He dropped it. "You know what—" his gaze cut over to Dallas, who was kicking one of the vending machines to try and get free food– "why should we attack _each other_?"

"Easy, Timmy." Luis looked up from cleaning the dirt out from under his nails with a knife. "I need him alive. His daddy's a gold mine of heroin."

"Right," Tim bit out, "you don't care what kind of shit he pulls, even if it gets Angela killed, as long as you get your payout."

"Watch your fuckin' mouth, _ese._ " Luis's skin looked even more drawn over his high cheekbones than usual. "Last I checked, I was the one who went after Joe, and you been sittin' around with your thumb up your ass. Makes me wonder who you're really sidin' with."

"Shepard, you got somethin' to say to me, you better spit it out." Dallas strode back over before Tim could finish flipping Luis the bird. "If it wasn't for me, she'd be dead, hope you realize that. I don't remember shovin' the pills into her mouth, but maybe you can jog my memory."

Tim moved with the speed of a stray alley cat, had Dallas pinned to the wall by the throat; even in that position, Dallas forced out a smirk, unwilling to admit defeat. I couldn't look, not to beg for clemency, not to see how it would play out; my gaze dropped to my vomit-covered lap, the industrial tile on the floor. I couldn't watch someone being strangled. "I know you got her pushin', I ain't that fuckin' _stupid._ Even _you_ can't be this much of a goddamn psychopath."

"I didn't get her into shit," Dallas managed to say, even with the fist wrapped around his throat. " _She_ came to _me,_ believe it or not, she came on to me too. I'm gettin' real tired of pissed-off big brothers blamin' me for their innocent little sisters' corr- _up_ -tion."

His grip tightened; Dallas still didn't look afraid. That should've been when I realized he wanted to die, but I didn't realize that until it was far, far too late to save him.

"Let him go." If Luis was God dictating the ten commandments to Moses, he couldn't have sounded more insistent than he did then. "You don't cut this shit out, second a nurse walks by, we're gettin' kicked out onto the street, an' you'll be lucky if you're not hauled down to the station. Damn, I raised you better than this."

Tim's fingers slackened, and he let him go; Dallas stumbled forward, massaging his throat. Luis came between them like a ref at one of Darry's football games, his arms spread out, a hand approaching each of their shoulders. "Break it up, you two. Angela's sick. This ain't the time."

Hearing that, Tim looked mollified— Dallas's scowl just deepened. "Come on, Jasmine." He snapped his fingers like he was calling a dog. "We're leavin'."

The snap was what sent me over the edge, encapsulating everything that had been going wrong in our relationship since he kissed me on my kitchen sink. "No." The word was tremulous, hesitant, but it still came out. "You're makin' an ass outta yourself, for Chrissakes. I'm not goin' anywhere until Angela wakes up."

"I get it. You choose him." I wished there was only wounded possessiveness written all over his face, not a hint of hurt, even betrayal. "Go fuck yourself, then."

Curly tried to take my hand as I numbly watched him storm out an emergency exit, hovered his above mine, then withdrew it as fast as he'd offered it. I was glad; that would've reminded me too much of the long wait to see if Mom would die on the operating table, Soda's grip so tight I thought he might break my fingers. "You want some?" he asked instead, thrusting a flask under my nose.

I took a swig without even asking what it was— turned out to be straight vodka, and I sputtered and coughed as it settled in my chest and burned there. "Y'all ever heard of a chaser or nothin'?"

"Did she try to kill herself?"

I wanted to lie to him, but there was no room for lies in this strange, liminal space. "Yeah, I think so." I slumped forward, unable to keep myself upright any longer, the vodka still burning a hole straight through my esophagus. "Probably. She's smart, she knows the label on them pills says not to mix them with alcohol."

The next word he said made my heart crack like a sheet of ice: "Why?"

"It ain't my story to tell." I wouldn't spill her sordid secrets, not here, not with Tim's head cradled in his hands a couple seats away. "Joe's a fucker, though. All I'm gonna say."

Curly looked away from me, his bottom lip clamped between his two front teeth. I'd never really considered that I might be responsible for an overdose— customers gave me money, I gave them the product, and I'd figured whatever they did next was their problem. Were there other families sitting like me right now, desperate for news, looking at a clock and watching every last second tick by?

I didn't like where my thoughts were headed, and for once, the alcohol wasn't doing anything to dissipate them.

* * *

It took until five in the morning, when I was in a half-asleep twilight zone, my head lolling onto my shoulder, for me to get kidnapped.

He clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle my scream, then started dragging me into a dark corner of the hall, like I was weightless. "Shut up, shut up," he hissed as he pressed me against the wall with one massive arm, a finger to his lips, "I ain't gonna hurt you, just shut up and listen to me."

I'd never much bothered to differentiate between Angela's looming uncles— they both had shaggy dark haircuts, cross necklaces, muscle definition Charles Atlas wouldn't have scoffed at— but I could tell this younger, more reckless one was Alberto, his heavy breaths flooding my nostrils with the smell of bourbon. "You're the lil' Curtis girl, ain't you?" I gave him a quick, sharp nod, almost knocking over a mop in the process. "Thank fuck," he said, and removed his hand— I'd come close to biting down on it. "Joe's got a price on your head. You know that?"

"Yeah." My vision started to blur; I couldn't tell if it was from dissociation or stress or just the sheer amount of hours I'd spent awake. "Angela told me." _Angela did that._

"You better lay low for a while," he said, with the air of a seasoned veteran in bounties. "Don't leave the house if you can help it, and if you gotta, take someone with you— a _man_ with you. One who's strapped, preferably."

"I can't just never go outside," I sputtered. "I got school and shit—"

"School is for fools, _chica_." He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, saw the 'no smoking' sign, scowled, and shoved it back inside. "You don't know who you're messin' with here, do you? You just pissed off the leader of the _Kings._ Doesn't matter if you can't take some goddamn math test as long as you don't end up six feet under."

"God fucking dammit." Wished I could be pissed at Angela, but she was a dead girl walking, and she'd seen a hell of a lot more of Joe than I ever could've. Wished I could be pissed at Dallas, for coming up with the idea of me selling drugs because he wanted to stick it to my daddy's ghost, but he'd had a damn good point about not being responsible for our actions. Maybe the only person I had left to be pissed at was myself.

"She got bruises all over her throat. Joe do that?"

"Yeah." Couldn't lie to him either, not when he was looking at me with those Ramirez eyes, like dark tunnels with no end. "I told Luis about it, what he was doin' to her. Guess he wasn't too happy 'bout wakin' up to the butt of a gun in his stomach."

According to my sources (Wayne and some of his bigmouthed friends), Joe had only escaped thanks to the Colt .45 he kept in his nightstand and the switch he kept under his pillow.

"If you won't get outta here, then you better start makin' arrangements," he said, leaning the back of his head against the wall. "Go talk to Eli, he's the leader of the Tigers, bat them pretty eyelashes at him and see if he'll throw you a bone."

"Why are you so worried about what happens to me?" I arched one eyebrow, with a look that had broken grown men before, but a hardened criminal like Alberto didn't even blink. "Someone's gonna think you Ramirez brothers have hearts after all."

"I don't give a shit about you." He didn't have an ounce of shame saying that, either. "Luis does, 'cause you're Darrel's daughter, but I got 'nuff trouble givin' a shit about my own family. I'm just sick of seein' Curly moon over you. He'd be bawlin' his eyes out if you died, and that's a real pain in the ass."

"The Tigers hate the Kings. Always have. What do you need me for?"

"Yeah, well, they ain't the biggest fans of Ramirez either." Alberto's grip on my shoulders, surely tight enough to bruise, slackened a fraction as he studied my wan, drawn face. "If we're gonna make this little grudge fight work, we need money, resources— gotta make some real alliances."

"And you wanna send _me_ down to the bullpen." I shook my head slowly, deciding it was pre-emptive grief that was making Alberto act like a damn fool right now. "Not one of your boys?"

"You're so much cuter, though." The edge of his lips was spreading to reach the dimple in his cheek. "And I'm a little desperate. So you gonna do it or not?"

He leaned over to kiss me, and why was I surprised? Men only wanted one thing— why the _hell_ was I surprised? I shoved him away, twisted my face to the side, before he could land his mouth on mine. "Fine," I said, heaving a long-suffering sigh, "I'll do your dirty work for you. But you and your brother better keep your hands offa me, I swear to fucking God—"

"All right, all right, I never made no broad do nothin'," Alberto said like he deserved praise for it, putting his hands up. Fuck, did they really not see the irony, groping me like it was going out of style and raging over Joe advancing on Angela? "You need a man to look after you, _pequeña_. If it ain't gonna be Dallas, you better consider a _man,_ if you know what I'm sayin'."

"You're fuckin' thirty."

"Twenty-five, if I'm a day— you're thinkin' of Luis." He gave me the dirtiest wink I'd ever received in my life. "I know everyone said you was uglier than your mama, but they was wrong, just wanted you to hear that. White bitches can never be pretty."

Dad would've shot a bullet between both their eyes. Thinking about that gave me the courage to gather myself and slip out the hospital's front entrance, start putting one foot in front of the other.

* * *

"Jasmine, what the fuck?"

I considered darting down the street, out of sight, but Two-Bit honked again before I could go through with it. "You're covered in blood, shit," he said, his eyebrows rising up to meet his rust-colored hairline. "Is it yours? What happened?"

"No," I said, feeling ancient as I looked down at my stained blouse, "it's Angela's."

"Angela _Shepard_? Like Tim and Curly's sister?"

"I got somewhere to be, Two-Bit, I ain't got time for twenty questions." I tried to smooth my hair down with one hand, grimacing at how it must have looked— I should've gone home first, changed clothes and done something about the massive bags under my eyes, but that would've meant facing an interrogation I didn't have the answers to. "I have to go."

"Lemme give you a ride, then." He leaned over and patted the passenger seat— I swiped a few empty beer cans and burger wrappers off, collapsing into it. I was so exhausted I could feel myself falling asleep as the truck jerked forward again, only knocked out of the lull of unconsciousness every time he hit a pothole or slammed on the brakes, curses leaving his tongue like river water skidding off stones. "Where's the fire?"

"Tiber Street," I said before my brain caught up to my mouth.

"Tiber Street, huh?" He smirked like he didn't believe me, or at least didn't want to believe me. "What if I turned this car around and took you back home to your brothers instead?"

"I'll jump out." I even wrapped my fingers around the door handle, pulling it towards me a little, though I didn't really intend on carrying out the threat. "Just ask Dallas."

"Hey, hey, ain't no need for that—" he took his hands off the steering wheel to lift them up in surrender, only to slam them back down to make a hairpin turn— "so long as you tell me what you're up to."

"I'm gonna go meet with the head of Tiber, and then have a ménage à trois with him and the head of the Kings."

"Honey, you're wanderin' the streets at the crack of dawn, covered in— excuse me, not yours, _Angela Shepard's_ blood— lookin' like you're about to drop dead of shock. I ain't tryna tell you off, I'm damn worried." He put a big hand on my shoulder and squeezed. "What the hell happened?"

It was the honest concern that almost made me come undone, right there in Two-Bit's shitty truck, and I bit down hard on my lip so tears wouldn't spring to my eyes. I wasn't a crier, I could never have survived growing up with three brothers if I was, but the sleep deprivation and adrenaline of the past couple days was rapidly catching up to me. "She OD'd at our house. I been at the hospital with her, then the whole clan showed and I had to split—"

"You shouldn't be walkin' around all by your lonesome." I wished he'd look at me with anything but the sympathy and pity shining through his eyes; I was long past the point of being a sympathetic character in this tale. "There's a damn war on. Where's Dally, don't he care?"

"We're not talkin'." I scanned my surroundings, paranoid that he might be wheeling me right back home, but he remained true to his word— the graffiti-etched bricks walls all around were starting to bear the insignia of the Tigers. "I think it's over."

"That might be the smartest decision you've made in a while," he said with his usual lack of tact. "Damn, Dally's a real good buddy, but I'm pretty sure nobody wants him to date anyone they care 'bout."

"He's the one who made it." Two-Bit would kill me if I lit up in his car, junker though it was, and especially kill me because I was a girl, but for the thousandth time in the past twenty-four hours, I wished I had a cigarette between my fingers. "I have to talk to somebody from the Tigers. It's important. Please, just quit askin' questions, it's safer for you that way."

"You're like my sister, Jas." He had a lead foot on the accelerator, thankfully, enough of one to knock the pit of my stomach out as we cruised down the block. "If Grace started gettin' into this shit—"

"Good thing you're not—"

"But I'm not your brother," he finished, before I could launch a real attack on my sororal qualities. "You can talk to Darry, you know. Whatever you're involved with, that you're too afraid to tell him about... he loves you. He's not gonna just stop lovin' you."

"Maybe I'm the one who stopped lovin' him," I offered up as delectable food for thought as I jumped out of the car, Two-Bit's foot having barely swept against the brake. "Thanks for the ride. I owe you one."

If this deal went the way Alberto expected, I could pay him back in cocaine and unicorns.

* * *

The roadhouse where the Tigers met, at six in the morning, had the air of a long-finished party— people had dozed off in the corners, empty beer cans and Solo cups littered the floor, and two guys were slumped at the bar, one leaning so far forward in his stool I feared he'd fall out of it, the other knocking a couple back despite the early hour. Without being told, I knew they were the ringleaders of the operation.

Exhaustion's weight near crushed me to the ground, as I took an objective analysis of the situation; I was tired, dirty, my mind fogged with memories of what I'd seen and my hair splattered with someone else's vomit. I had no idea how to convince this man to do anything, except by taking my clothes off, and he'd probably just want to march me into the nearest shower.

"Hey," I said anyway as I approached, leaning against the bar and shooting him what I hoped was a sultry look. "You guys runnin' this joint?"

The one with a glass of Jack Daniels didn't turn his head, just glanced at me out the very corner of his eye and gulped some of it down. He was Indian, his skin maybe a shade darker than Johnny's— his ink-black hair hung so choppily around his collar that I thought he might have cut it himself with a knife. "Hi," he said, then did a double take when he noticed how I was dressed. "Christ hell, first rule of leavin' a murder scene— change."

He had all the superficial charm and sophistication of a plank of wood. Despite myself, I liked him immediately.

"No time." I tried to affect a cool, unflappable persona, like a femme fatale in a New Wave movie, and popped open a button on my blouse. "I need a favor, it's real urgent."

"You know how many girls I got unbuttonin' their shirts around me, tryna score a _favor_?" He rolled his eyes, which made him look younger than he was— maybe twenty-two or twenty-three, older than Tim for sure, but not nearly as old as his uncles. "You're gonna have to be Playmate of the Year at this point to get me goin'."

"Eli—" The other one looked me up and down, with more boredom and idle curiosity than real attraction. "Don't be like that. Come on, sweetheart, sit down, have a drink."

He jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow. "Quit actin' like a King, _Nick_ , she ain't even legal. Doubt she even came here by herself."

"And what makes you think that?" Inadequacy entered me like a shard of glass sinking into the sole of my foot. When had I started defining my self-worth by men finding me attractive, but still cringing away from them, wanting them to look but not touch?

"Shepards is all the same," he said, like a prophet coming out of the desert with truth on his tongue. "Got the same weakness— pretty girl with tears in her eyes, and they'll sell their souls up the river. What happened to you, who'd you piss off?"

"You gonna pour me that drink?"

Nick grabbed the bottle and splashed some into a dirty glass, dust motes gathered at the bottom. I drank it and felt nothing at all, not slow spreading warmth or calm or volubility, just how I imagined the inside of a black hole to be. I didn't know how I should feel about that.

"Joe's gunnin' for me." It still seemed like I was talking about the bogeyman, the monsters in the closet I'd begged Dad to vanquish when I was a child, even though the evidence was written all over Angela's body. (Her maybe _dead_ body, a horrible, creeping mental voice told me.) "I said somethin' I shouldn't have, to Luis, that he was pretty much his niece's pimp... he ain't exactly happy about it. He's givin' out money to anyone who kills me."

"And I know— it was Alberto, wasn't it?" I gave Eli a stiff nod. "We go way back to the reformatory, I know how he operates. He thought he'd send you down here, covered in blood and puke and snot, with that sob story ready, and I'd fall over myself to put a horse in this race. Forget it."

"But—"

"It ain't happenin'." He cut me in half with his smoldering eyes, daring me to object. "Joe's a first-rate bastard, but the enemy of my enemy ain't my friend. They turned on the Kings just 'cause they wanted more territory, and I don't trust like that."

"Nobody's makin' you _trust_." With the last scraps of reason I possessed, I tried to formulate a logical argument that would convince a gang leader to give up substantial amounts of cash. "Ain't you always been tired of the Kings controllin' most of the dope in the city? Join up with Ramirez, you'll be able to knock them outta the park."

"You're less like your daddy than I thought," he said, his laugh rough. "He would've tried to sell me some line 'bout what terrible people the Kings are, and how he's an improvement on them. At least you understand what kind of business this is."

"How do you know what he— I never even told you my name." I didn't like this, the thought that Dad had been far more prolific than even I had ever deduced, half the city's most dangerous thugs having firsthand accounts about the kind of man he'd been. Making assumptions about the kind of woman I was, carrying the weight of his legacy like a crown.

"I been messin' with you. I shouldn't have." He pulled some of his shaggy hair off his collar. "You're Jasmine Curtis. Most everybody's heard of you by now."

"Hell d'you know 'bout me, huh?"

"You got a lot of powerful men runnin' circles 'round you." He let the last few drops of his whiskey slide down the edges of the glass and into his mouth. "Dallas Winston and the Shepard kid fightin' over you, the Ramirez brothers sendin' you to do their dirty work, and everyone's heard what your daddy got up to last decade. Almost did a spit take when I saw you really _were_ just fifteen."

"I'm not a kid," I said, then cringed at the line, the kind of thing Ponyboy would've considered clever. "I know how the business works, I ain't askin' you for charity. You got the chance to—"

"I don't need you to pitch involvement with Ramirez like you're some housewife tryna get me sellin' essential oils," he said. "You have somethin' I want, and it ain't your pussy."

"What?"

"Your brother— Soda." He leaned back on his stool, rolling the words around his mouth with satisfaction. "I want him in my crew."


	25. I'm Not in Love

"You can't have him."

There was a cigarette dangling between Eli's fingers, and instead of taking another drag, he ground it right into the bar; it began smoldering, a definite hole forming in the wood. I imagined that same hole branded into the skin on my arm, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off the tip, and somehow I knew that was exactly what he wanted me to imagine. "I'd rethink that, if I were you."

"Why do you even want to take him on full-time?" I asked, like he was the hiring manager at the fucking DX. "He's already _in_ a gang, anyway, even if he works for y'all. In my brother Darry's."

"I'm supposed to believe fightin' some spoiled rich kids from Will Rogers is the most he wants outta his life?" He stubbed the weed out, flicked the ashes off the bar. "I like him, all my boys like him. He can charm the panties off any broad who needs them charmed off. He's a good thief."

"And what makes you think you're gonna win him over so easy?"

"Because I always get everything I want." He sounded more wistful than triumphant as he said it. "'Sides, tell any guy that his kid sister's gonna be stalked and killed— or worse— unless he joins your gang, shit, he'll be leavin' bigger dust clouds than Road Runner on the way here."

I glared at him, and he laughed. "Don't look at me like that," he said, "like I ran over your puppy. You can't get somethin' for nothin' in the real world, that's how it works, and I'm bein' mighty generous. Just get your brother jumped in, and not _only_ will I provide Ramirez with all the money and guns their hearts desire, but you can have your own personal protection detail wherever the hell you go."

Still must've looked at him like he ran over my puppy, because he sighed and fumbled with his car keys. "Lemme give you a ride home, c'mon. You shouldn't be walkin' around all by your lonesome at this hour."

I grabbed my purse from one of the leather seats, sticky with spilled beer. "I can find my own way back, thanks."

The smile he gave me was like the edge of a knife. "You're miles away from your neighborhood, and to get there you'll need to pass through King territory... not to mention that you're all alone. You really wanna take that chance?"

When I blinked dumbly back at him, the smile vanished. "Get in the damn car before I change my mind."

I went.

* * *

"Little girl," came Darry's slow, menacing drawl as I slipped in through the front door, "what the _fuck_ is goin' on here."

He sure wasn't asking a question, his foot tapping against the floor like a metronome, arms crossed; I carefully set my heels down before answering. "High-risk trading."

His laugh was about as pleasant as a root canal. "Let's see. I come home from work, the bathroom looks like a murder scene, Pony's out on the Ribbon because 'Dally said I'd get arrested if I didn't leave', and now you just got personally chauffeured by the head of the Tigers. I think the least I deserve is an explanation right now."

"Angela overdosed." I swayed dangerously in front of him, inches away from complete physical and emotional collapse. "She came over and... she was throwin' up like crazy, havin' a seizure. Dallas thought she might die if we didn't take her to the hospital."

"Yeah, I got that much outta Pony... is she okay?"

"Fuck, I dunno." It was a testament to the seriousness of Angela's condition that Darry didn't say a word about my cussing. "I left before I heard any news. She got her stomach pumped, though, the doctors said she'd probably wake up."

"You know what, doesn't matter," and there was the Darry I hadn't exactly missed. "You should've called, Saint Francis has payphones— and I don't want you bringin' no more Shepards 'round this house, you hear? Dally's right, if she died, we could've all been investigated."

I just nodded at him, and he squinted his left eye. "You're grounded. Two weeks. You can keep Soda company."

"Okay. Guess that's fair 'nuff."

"... What, that's it?" He gave me a hard, scrutinizing look. "No talkin' back, no screamin' about how grown you are, no threats to crawl out the window? You gettin' sick or somethin'?"

"Dallas broke up with me," came out in a tiny voice, and just to add insult to injury, tears were starting to prickle at the corners of my eyes. Like all I had to cry about was my hood boyfriend ditching my ass. "I'm pretty sure."

"Thank God," Darry said, and wasn't a hint mollified by my facial expression. He even heaved a sigh of relief far too dramatic for the situation. "Thought I'd have to put him in the morgue before he left you alone."

My bottom lip wobbled, and Darry sighed again at the pathetic figure I cut. "C'mere, baby." He led me over to the couch and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me close to him. "Shit, I been downright decent. Dad used to take his gun out the dresser drawer and tell your dates he wasn't afraid to go back to prison."

"That ain't somethin' to be proud of, Stan Michaels passed out cold on the livin' room floor." I wouldn't cry about Dally, not when Angela was fighting for her life, not in front of Darry. I didn't even know if he really wanted to break up, or if he'd just wanted to throw a tantrum in there, express his anger and powerlessness the only way he could.

"I'm gonna miss you," Darry said awkwardly, like me leaving was similar to the heat death of the universe, something inevitable he had no way of preventing. " _Really_ , Jas, don't give me that eyeroll. You're a pain in the ass, but you're still my sister."

I was starting to feel guilty, for what I'd said to Two-Bit, that I didn't love him anymore. Maybe I did. Maybe I always would.

* * *

"Heard from Darry that we're gonna be jailbirds together," Soda said as he crashed through the bathroom door without knocking— I glared at him when I saw him in the mirror, my reflection surrounded by dripping condensation. "Guess I'll get out Dad's old harmonica and you can sing along."

Shampooing twice with a healthy dose of Prell hadn't done much to improve my smell— maybe because I'd spent the past half hour with my eyes closed, facing the shower spray, opening them to see blood falling down my body and circling the drain. "Mrph."

"Heard you and Dally are on the rocks, too." He shifted his weight to one leg and started bouncing it up and down with manic energy— drove his teachers crazy when he was still in school. "Can't say I don't hope it's true."

"You ain't my boss, Soda Curtis." I spit a mouthful of foam out into the sink and turned around to face him. "Do you see me gettin' all up in your business with Sandy?"

 _As much as I_ _want_ _to._

"Last I checked, it's a big brother's job to get all up in his kid sister's business, not the other way around." He had the kind of smile that could've been in a Colgate commercial, straight and gleaming white, despite the sheer amount of sugar he consumed. Like most greasers', my teeth were pretty messed up. "Not that Sandy an' I have nothin' to be interferin' with."

 _That's what you think._

His expression sobered, though, in the span of a few seconds, and he pulled something out of the pocket of his jeans— Mom's engagement ring, real diamond, no, I didn't want to think about what Dad had done to afford it. He tossed it back and forth in his hands, like it was a rubber ball. "I think I'm gonna ask Sandy to marry me."

 _... What?_

Images of her flashed through my mind— her gleaming blonde ponytail, her poodle skirts that came down past her knees, her blue eyes barely framed by makeup. The All-American girl. Dom probably gave it to her through the backdoor, in the dark, and Soda just didn't have one goddamn _clue_.

"I know we're young, but... I want to do it," he said recklessly, fearlessly, interrupting my train of thought. "Have a family with her. Spend my whole life with her."

What the hell do you know about her, after dating for a few months? I wanted to ask him— really grab him by the shoulders and literally shake the sense back into him. How does she feel about her parents? What would she do in a crisis, an injured child, a husband doing time, a terminal illness? What did she want to be as a kid, before she found out that all she got was wife and mother?

Who were we? What had we done to each other?

"So who's gonna be your best man?" I asked instead of saying any of that. "Pony or Darry?"

" _Damn_ you." He came over and gave me a light punch to the arm. "Steve. That's the only way it can be fair."

"It's still a terrible idea. Don't get me wrong." I started applying acne medication with a cotton ball, not caring much about his presence when he plucked nose hairs with the door wide open. "How you gonna support her, huh, gas station man?"

"Join the army," he said with a perfectly straight face, "Uncle Sam always needs more boys to shoot gooks in the jungle." We looked at each other for a moment before bursting out snickering. "She won't have to worry 'bout nothin'," he added, clear determination streaming in through his voice. "Dad always took care of us, no matter how bad things got. I'm not gonna do my family worse."

He looked so happy as he gazed off into the distance, wearing the most lovestruck, soppy expression, that I couldn't bring myself to shatter the illusion and tell him that his Dulcinea was actually a cheating whore. Even putting aside her promise to nark on me, what good would it do— would he believe me? Would it accomplish anything but causing even more pain than I already had?

And that was when the biggest secret I'd ever kept shriveled in the base of my throat, the truth about what I'd discussed earlier, like selling livestock from one gang to another. Because I knew as sure as I knew the sun rose in the east, that if I told Soda what happened that morning, he'd come home that night with bruises and broken bones, a blue Tiber bandana wrapped around his bicep. Wouldn't think twice about it, neither.

So I would solve this myself, even if it killed me.

* * *

If they rotated Twist And Shout one more time at this party, I was gonna shoot somebody. Maybe myself.

Dallas was the undisputed ringleader of our little operation, the one who procured most of the product, found venues to sell at, distributed the profits— without him, I felt like I'd had a limb cut off, flailing around untethered in space. What was I doing here? What was I going to do? I should've been at Rose's place, talking up a storm about how much I _loved_ Buddy Holly, or catching the 505 out of Tulsa, or just diving off a bridge somewhere, but instead I was staking out my old haunts behind Darry's back, the swan song of the person I'd so briefly and intensely become.

"Hey, Curtis." Buck gave me a rough tap on the shoulder— I still couldn't focus on anything but his missing front teeth when he spoke to me, not even on the oversized cowboy hat threatening to fall off his head. He always had girls flocking around him like seagulls, though, I had no idea how he'd dislodged them now. "Where's Dallas at, huh? I want my fucking reds. Party's gonna blow without 'em."

"Cool your heels, I dunno," I said without any inflection. "Am I my boyfriend's keeper?"

His hand hovered close enough to my arm that I could feel the disturbance in the air; he wasn't trying to sexually intimidate me, just intimidate me the regular way, but I still shuddered. "I'm gettin' real tired of his shit, you know _that_? He don't pay the rent half the time, he runs his mouth like he owns this place— you go ahead and tell him that if he keeps messin with me, I'm gonna—"

"Heyyy, Jasmine, girl, where you been?" Evie swept onto the scene and yanked me away by the elbow, her face artificially bright and cheerful, and not just because of the electric-blue eyeshadow she had on. I'd never been happier to see her in my life. "You ready to go home yet? Everyone's waitin'."

"You shouldn't be out," she hissed into my ear as she led me up the stairs, which was when I remembered her brother was a King. "Especially not at one of Buck's parties. What the hell?"

She was using her big sister voice— I used it often enough myself to recognize it. "I just had to get out of the house—" I tried to tug the baggie into my purse behind my back— "get away from..."

"Angela?" Sympathy shined through her eyes as she registered the confusion in mine. "I ran into Ponyboy down at the Ribbon last night, he was real messed up. Rode in the passenger seat of a drag car, if you wanna yell at him."

I shook my head ruefully, more mad about the fact that he'd told Evie than about the drag race— like Angela's story wasn't already going to be whispered all around the school. "Stupid kid, could've broken his neck," I cussed good-naturedly, pressing my back into the columns of the staircase. "You heard 'bout the fatwa I got on me, huh?"

"Girl, if I were you, I'd be too scared to go piss, much less walk 'round outside." She poured some of her lukewarm punch down her throat, needing a dose of liquid courage to even contemplate the hypothetical. "That Angela Shepard, she's bad trouble all right. Can't believe she dragged you into it."

I'd washed her puke out of my hair, but I couldn't bring myself to defend her right then, as the knowledge of what she'd done to me seeped into my veins. Downing the shot in my hand made me feel slightly warmer and looser, but only _slightly_. "Evie..." I hesitated, like almost tripping over a stair you didn't see. "If it came down to you or your brother, what would you pick?"

Being around me made Evie's drinking increase exponentially. I didn't blame her. "Gonna need some more context," she said between frantic gulps. "Which one d'you plan on usin' as a meat shield again?"

"Say... if you could maybe get protection from another outfit... an outfit your brother's sort of involved in but not really," I helpfully tried to explain. "But in exchange your brother has to join that outfit and maybe get shot or sent to the slammer or dismembered or somethin'. What would you do?"

Her answer was drowned out by one of the bedroom doors opening, and Dallas and Sylvia spilling out into the hallway, Sylvia giggling, clutching his shirt collar to keep herself upright. There was lipstick on it, sloppy red marks; her messy hair screamed just-been-fucked; Dallas's neck had a hickey suckled into it, the purple standing out obscenely against his translucent white-boy skin. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce _this_ mystery.

I wished I could've felt shock, horror, humiliation, anything but the grim acceptance that swept over me as I saw the two of them. He offered me no apology, just looked at me the way he had at Sylvia's house, what felt like so long ago, his hand up her skirt, his eyes boring straight through me and calling my bluff. _I own her, I can do whatever I like with her. And I can do whatever I like with you._

"Jasmine, hey," he said like his fingers weren't still wet with Sylvia's—

With Sylvia's—

She couldn't look me in the eye, instead studying the grooves in the floorboards— I hadn't expected much better from her. _Guess you're a fucking whore, Syl, same as all of Will Rogers claims_ , I wanted to say. _Does Johnny know Steve was right about you— you're completely faithless, chimerical, putting out for any guy who throws you a few empty compliments?_

Except my mean mouth, usually so adept even when confronted with rapists and hardened drug dealers, couldn't manage to get a single syllable out. I gaped like a dead fish.

"What the _fuck_ , Dallas?" Evie demanded in my place, though challenging him, especially as a woman, led nowhere good. "What the fuck are you doin', huh?"

He barely swept his eyes over her, tightening his arm around Sylvia's waist. "Ask Jasmine," he said with a careless shrug. "Or no, ask Curly. He got a lot of stories about her."

I didn't give him the satisfaction of a reaction, a feat I wouldn't have been capable of just a short month ago. He wanted me to get angry, cuss him out, lose control, so we could end up fucking and he could get away with it. "Here," I said with terrifying calm, pulling the bag back out of my purse and dropping it at his feet. "Think you forgot somethin' of yours."

* * *

I shouldn't have left Buck's without an escort— at first I strode heedless of where I was headed, just trying to vanish into the velvet-dark sky, righteous indignation fueling every step and whatever they'd mixed into that punch doing the rest. It was how I didn't notice the looming figure coming up until he was in front of me, blocking my path.

It wasn't a King, they had better grooming standards, but a homeless guy with badly-matted hair and a grimy bottle in his hand. Dad always told us to give up the change in our pockets, that it was so, so hard to be Indian, that they deserved compassion and not scorn, but right then he was a man and I was a woman and we were alone on a deserted street at night. I cringed away.

"Am I scarin' you, sweetheart?" He laughed, unsteadily, stumbling towards me; I couldn't tell if his words were rueful or threatening without seeing more than a rough sketch of his face, badly illuminated by the half-moon overhead, and I didn't plan on sticking around to find out. "Am I scarin' you?"

I shoved him aside with strength I didn't know I had and bolted all the way down the East Side, ignoring traffic lights, my heart hammering at my chest cavity, until I reached the Shepards' front door and banged on it. _What was wrong with me?_ I castigated myself harshly, trying to catch my ragged breath as I clutched their porch railing. I'd kept my cool around far more dangerous men than him, who probably didn't want anything except spare change, carried a knife on the regular, and I'd lost every ounce of sense I'd ever possessed.

But Joe's hit had changed everything for me, chipped away at my last delusions of safety, and I realized how stupid and naive I'd been all along. It was a dark, dangerous world for a girl without a man— especially a girl like me.

Tim came out onto the porch, barefoot, yanking down his t-shirt to scratch the thatch of dark hair on his chest— Curly was better-looking, a mean part of my brain noted, even though he was the younger and less-developed one. "Jasmine, what the hell?"

"Hey," I said, unable to sound anything but caustic and mocking. "Thought I'd find you here."

"Obviously, I _liv_ _e_ here. When I can't avoid it, anyway." He leaned against the door frame, one arm reaching up above his head— he still looked like he hadn't slept in days, the same dazed, disoriented look in his dark blue eyes. "What do you want? I got a sister in the hospital right now, so—"

I was beyond girlish seduction at this point, batting my lashes, playing coy— I was sick of all that shit. I pulled my shirt off over my head and stared him down like a matador going after a particularly stubborn bull. "You wanna _really_ stick it to Dallas?"

"Always, but..." Now he looked like a toaster that had had a glass of water poured all over it. " _What_ are you doin'?"

Only fumbling with the hooks a little, I slipped my bra off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor, too. "Then take off your clothes."

* * *

... And on that note, we're getting VERY close to book events :) (Only took 100k to get there!)


	26. Ride or Die

Tension hung between us, thick and murky like fog, but it took him all of five seconds to start laughing. Maybe it had only existed in my fevered imagination. "Listen, I know I'm by _far_ the better-lookin' brother, but I don't compete with Curly for broads. He's at one of his lil' friends' houses, if that's who you're really after."

I wondered how his devoutly religious mother would react to me standing topless in her foyer, the cool air from the ceiling fan raising goosebumps on my skin— then decided I didn't care, with the amount of men Mary Magdalene brought home. "I wasn't making a mistake, trust me," I said, but no matter how much I tried to soften my voice, make it as syrupy as a spoonful of honey, I still sounded completely dead inside. "Don't you think I'm pretty?"

"No. I mean, shit, don't start cryin'— I have a girlfriend, and she's a lot prettier than you, so you better put those fifteen-year-old tits back where they came from." He stared down the end of the hallway just to avoid catching a glimpse of them; chastened, I put my bra back on again, then my shirt, my face hot. "Why would I wanna fuck some girl my kid sister's age? Jesus _Christ._ "

"Doesn't everyone?" Hysteria bubbled up in my throat, spilling over like a boiling pot. "Doesn't everyone wanna fuck me? Your whole family does, Timmy, so you might as well get in line."

Tim grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a hard shake, stilling my whirlwind of destruction. "What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"Your uncles drool all over me like dogs on raw meat." I'd long since cloaked these feelings under a haze of indifference, the sense that my body was nothing more than public property. "I know you want me. Everybody wants me. So quit playin' games and take off your fuckin' clothes already."

"You _better_ not get involved with them." He slapped his palm down on the wall, hard enough to send a picture of him and Curly crashing to the floor. "Luis already got two baby mamas, and I dunno how Alberto's clear 'cept for divine intervention. Luis don't pay nothin' for the kids, either. Brags about it all the time."

"How come?" I was intrigued in spite of myself. "Seems like he practically raised you an' Curly."

"'Cause they're girls," he said with a slight quirk of his eyebrow. "He never gave much of a damn 'bout Angela, neither, 'least not 'til now. And don't make me laugh— Luis is _not_ my daddy."

"You ever call him that?"

"Shut up—" he stabbed a finger at my neckline— "that ain't the point. You stay away from them. I dunno what they're playin' at, but it won't lead nowhere good."

"Dally's messin' around on me," I said, _the lousy motherfucker_ hitting the back of my teeth. "I wanted to get even with him... don't you?"

"Temptin' as that is, I think I'm gonna have to pass." He gave me a look that was a cross between sadness and pity. "He's sure rubbed off on you."

"What d'you mean?"

"You can't just use people to get what you want, _chica_." He swept a piece of sweaty hair away from my eyes, the action purely fraternal, his fingers light. "It don't work like that."

My face crumpled, and without being able to articulate why— maybe his unexpected gentleness, maybe all the combined stressors of the past few days, maybe just because I was piss drunk— I lurched forward and started to cry into his t-shirt, throwing my arms around his neck. He tolerated it for a solid minute, patting me on the back in a mechanical rhythm, before gently disentangling himself from my stranglehold. "Shit, I can't handle seein' no broad bawl... c'mon, let's go sit down, you can tell me 'bout it."

I couldn't tell him about _it_ — somehow I knew that he'd go straight to Darry with the information, regardless of my wishes— but one of the marginally smaller _its_ was clawing its way out of my mouth, unbidden. I let him place a hand on the small of my back and lead me into his and Curly's room, a bunker redolent of Axe deodorant and stale sweat, Playboy cutouts on the walls, and sit me down beside him on the bed. "What's goin' on? And don't tell me it's just Dally's dumb ass."

So I managed to get out, in fits and starts, what had gone down— the hit on me, Alberto's request, the deal I'd been coerced into making with the devil. By the end of it, I had a headache pounding at the walls of my skull, and desperately wanted a glass of water for my parched throat. Tim was clutching handfuls of the bedspread, his knuckles standing out white. "I'm gonna fucking shank him."

"Tim—"

"No, this is just goin' too fucking far, even for him," he snarled. "He could've gotten you killed, if you annoyed Eli enough, not just roped your brother into the Tigers' operation."

I knew then, though I couldn't articulate it, that Tim would end up leaving this life, just like my father had— he didn't have the cold-bloodedness, the ability to selectively shut off empathy, that I'd seen in his uncles. "Well, I'm already dead, ain't I?" I said with a wry grin spreading to the edges of my cheeks. "Just a matter of time before Joe tracks me down, then it's lights-out."

He studied the contours of my face. "Angel says your aunt wants to take you down to Texas with her."

"Yeah."

"Go pack your bags." He threw a sweatshirt hanging off Curly's dresser at me; it smelled like pot smoke and Ivory soap and _boy_. "Damn, and put this on, will you? Whatever _that_ is, I ain't callin' it no top."

Worry nested in my skin like shrapnel, and I tore off part of my thumbnail with my teeth, picking at the jagged edges. "Your brother digs it okay."

He shot me a rare smirk. "Shit, girl, you don't gotta tell me nothing 'bout _that_. He keeps a picture of you next to the Vaseline and Kleenex. Almost enough to make me move out for good."

I'd left a splotchy wet patch on his shoulder, mascara standing out dark against the white background, and I couldn't suppress my groan. "Awh, you don't hafta be so embarrassed," he said. "I seen Dallas cry before, an' that's the honest truth, so don't worry 'bout it."

" _What_?" If he said he'd seen a unicorn frolicking on his dead grass lawn, or seen a stone bleed, I couldn't have been more surprised. " _When_?"

He shifted around on the mattress. "After your mama died. I mean, your daddy too, that was part of it, but mostly your mama. Think she was the only person who ever really loved him, you know?"

"You tryna guilt me into takin' him back? 'Cause it ain't workin'."

"Nah, just... look, I rag on the guy all the time. He pisses me the hell off, _every goddamn day_ , and I'm pretty sure that's his mission in life. But he ain't the devil incarnate." He cut his eyes at the floor. "You're not so bad-lookin', it ain't that... we got through two trips to juvie together. I can't do this."

"Tim—" My voice shook. "Can I stay here tonight? I can't go home, Darry don't know I left—"

"If I was your brother—" He shook his head, unable to meet my gaze. "Lord, I'd lock you up in a tower like Rapunzel. You've managed to cause more trouble than I thought a broad ever could."

"Tim—"

"Go to Angel's room," he said, waving his hand down the hall, "ain't like she's usin' it anyway. But this better be the last time, you hear? Like I need your big brother crawlin' up my ass right now, askin' why I wanna get all up in your business."

I couldn't sleep in her bed, even with alcohol deadening all of my nerve endings, her wool blanket scratching my exposed skin. My mind drifted to Graham, his reaction to my drunkenness, and the memory curdled inside of me like bad milk.

* * *

If I'd had two brain cells to rub together, I would've taken Tim's advice and told Rose how much I wanted to move in with her, right away, skipped town before the ink on the court papers had time to dry. Unfortunately, I'd never been known for planning much out in advance.

A vague sense of disquiet washed over me as I saw Angela propped up on the pillows, her skin drawn over her cheekbones like a drum, an IV pumping fluid into her veins— she was dwarfed by the size of the hospital bed, her face painfully young and _fourteen_ without her usual armor of makeup. "I heard that story a million times, Tío," she said, trying to affect bratty disinterest, but she just sounded like a simulacrum of her old self. "They all end the same way, someone stiffed you and you kicked their ass."

"Don't say ass, _princesa_." Alberto gave the IV an experimental tug, like he didn't quite grasp what it was for. "Ain't a nice word for a lady."

"Yeah, yeah, like I ever been no lady." She tried to straighten herself up. "You gonna give me a smoke or not?"

He pulled a loose one out of his pocket, looked at the tubes coming out of her nose, then shook his head. "Nah, think it might set all that oxygen on fire."

She rolled her eyes and caught sight of me in the same instant— I'd been afraid she'd blame me for interrupting a pretty obvious suicide attempt, but she just smiled at me. It was an empty, vacant smile, like a house with all the lights turned off. "Jas," she said. "What's been goin' on?"

 _I tried to sleep with your brother— and not the one you're thinking of_ , was the first inappropriate thought to pop into my mind, and I almost said it out loud. Angela would've found it hilarious, probably laughed with her mouth wide open and asked if I was trying to collect them all, then laughed harder when she found out that Tim had rejected me. But I didn't want to give Alberto more of a reason to consider me sexually, not with the way his gaze followed me across the room, in constant, jittery motion.

"We've all been real worried 'bout you," I finally said, twirling some of her bedspread around my index finger.

She just barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes again, I could tell by the tension in the upper half of her face. I should've told her about the brawl that had broken out between Tim and Dallas at her bedside. She would've liked hearing that a lot more.

"Angel, baby, you mind if we step outside for a little?" Alberto smiled at me, all nice and friendly, like a serial killer right before he shoved you into the trunk of his car and drove off into the woods. "Jasmine and I got some business to talk about."

She waved us off, and it took Alberto all of a second to press me up against the wall— damn, the security guards in this joint weren't being paid to do much, were they? "You came here alone, so I'm just gonna go ahead and assume the mission wasn't a success."

"Just gettin' a few details ironed out, is all—"

"I don't like bein' lied to." He twisted my arm behind my back, hard enough that I thought he might dislocate my shoulder, but I refused to cry out. "You better not be hidin' nothin' from me, either. I'll beat it outta you."

"It's between me and him—" He'd have Soda wrapped up in duct tape and delivered right to Eli's doorstep, I was sure of it.

"Dallas never should've brought two lil' girls into this shit. Y'all have no sense of _perspectiv_ e. Lemme spell this out for you, lil' girl— we're talkin' about hundreds of dollars of product and guns. If he didn't like you, you oughta tell me now."

"I ain't tellin' you _shit_ ," I told him in a wild rush of bravery, and because I didn't think that was bad enough, I spit on the floor next to his gaucho boots. "I don't owe you nothin', do I, what have you ever done for me?"

"Your daddy should've hit you more, Christ on high," he said. "Carlos kept tryna tell him, most important thing for a girl, she oughta learn how to be obedient. But you never could shut that mouth."

I fumed, but silently, _shutting that mouth_ for the first time in my life. Alberto dragged the tip of his shoe through the saliva at his feet. "Darrel took a charge for Luis, back when he went inside. That's the only reason we let him walk after he got out." He stiffened the proud set of his shoulders as he looked down at me. "Whoever you're tryna protect— and I got a _pretty_ good idea who— I'd suggest you give him up and save your own skin. He's already done for."

* * *

I found Dallas in Buck's den, creeping down the rickety stairs uninvited and unasked for. I hated being in his house during the day, the shoddiness and disrepair obvious in brighter light. If I was being honest with myself, I hated being in his house at any time.

He tipped the last of his beer down his throat, crushed the can in his fist, and threw it across the room— it landed in front of the TV, next to three others. "Lousy Sooners can't play their way out of a paper bag," he groused. "I'd do better if you slapped a helmet and some anabolic steroids on _me_."

"Shame you can't ride bull half as good as you talk it," Buck said— Dallas's fist shot out to collide with his forearm once 'it' left his mouth. "Last time I bet one goddamned Yankee dime on you, Winston."

Dallas just grinned at him, a glimmer of genuine, stupid glee in that grin— I could've fallen in love with him, if he'd ever let himself look at me that way. It cracked a trail of dirt and blood running across his face. "Awh, it was the horse, c'mon, you can't blame me none. You got your reds and your best jockey back, ain't that 'nuff to make you happy?"

Buck nudged him with his elbow. "Your jailbait's here."

"Hey, Dally," I said, trying to appear believably contrite— I even took my bottom lip between my teeth, shifting from foot to foot like a nervous schoolgirl. "Can we talk?"

"Sure. Talk." He jerked the muscle in his jaw at Buck. "But if you wanna sit on my face, you better cut it short so I can concentrate."

I could recognize the attempt at regaining his masculinity for what it was, but it still rankled, a splotchy flush spreading throughout my body as Buck snickered. _Focus_ , I told myself sternly, _just focus for a little bit longer_. "That ain't what I meant," I said, winding my arms around his neck and climbing into his lap, the side of his throat salty with sweat as I pressed my lips against it. "C'mon, baby, let's make up already."

I kissed him with manic energy, though the warmth of his palms against my torso repulsed me more than anything as he lifted up my shirt— when he pushed me against the cushions, Buck took that as his cue to leave. "You get any stains on my couch, that's—"

"Comin' right outta my paycheck, yeah, I heard the first twenty times," he said, but he was suckling hickeys into my collarbone before Buck could make it to the top of the stairs.

"You want this?" I grinded harder into his lap and pulled my shirt off over my head. "You want this?"

"Yeah, baby, yeah," he panted, pawing at the hooks of my bra, yanking his zipper down so fast it almost broke. "I want it."

That was when I backhanded him. It was glorious.

"You stupid motherfucker." Saying it felt like the relief of vomiting when you have the stomach flu. "You really bought that one, huh?"

He grabbed my wrist before I could land another hit, his lips curled up, exposing his teeth. "Little bitch—"

"Thought you liked that," I taunted, easily disengaging from his hold. "Gettin' a real crazy bitch, tamin' her. 'Cept I guess it ain't so easy as bein' a zookeeper, huh?"

"For Chrissakes, it didn't mean nothin' with Sylvia," he spat along with a splatter of blood onto the cushions. "It was just a fuck— the only reason I even dated her was to be around you."

"You _sure_ proved that by runnin' back to her first chance you got."

"You don't get to pretend you're the goddamn victim here," he snarled, wiping his mouth off with his already-filthy sleeve. "When you been messin' around with Curly behind my back— don't even try to deny it, everybody and their mama's laughin' at me."

"I never messed around on you." I could cling to that bit of truth. "Ever. We slept together, before I even _got_ with you, and then _he_ kissed _me_ one time after that... and I told him to get lost."

"Why didn't you tell me?" He crossed his arms. "Maybe 'cause you had somethin' to hide?"

"Why did you screw over Johnny?" I demanded, high off the potency of my own rage. "He's your best friend, he practically worships you— how the hell could you sleep with his girl?"

"Jesus, like that broad was somethin' special. I did him a favor. She wasn't faithful to me, she wasn't faithful to him, better he figures that one out 'fore she traps him with a baby."

"You're so fucked up, you can't even admit it." The words came out like venom from the fangs of a snake, I could hardly believe I was saying them. "You're never sober, you can't even fuck me sober, you can't even admit what happened to you was _rape_ —"

The slap caught me far more off-guard than it should've, snapping my head back as heat bloomed across my cheek— and suddenly we were indistinguishable from every shitty-ass couple on the East Side, waking up the neighborhood with the sound of sirens, walking around with each other's battle wounds. Somehow I couldn't believe he'd actually hit me, that the pain wasn't phantom, even though I was sure I could've seen a clear handprint if I'd looked at myself in the mirror.

"Shut the fuck up." If he'd sounded triumphant, I could've hated him in peace, but instead he just sounded like his twelve-year-old self, tiny and vulnerable and on his knees. "You can't rape a man, _shut up—_ "

"You're just like my daddy." I didn't even fumble with the hooks of my bra this time, as I got dressed, I knew I wasn't coming back. "A no-good drunk who's always gettin' jailed. And I'm not gonna play the role of my mama and save you from yourself."

"Jasmine." I turned around on the stairs, though I shouldn't have. "I love you."

He didn't mean it— or maybe he did, but in the same way he loved his switchblade or his best horse or his engraved ash tray. What tipped my hand was how he looked at me, like he expected the magic words to make me fall into his arms again. "Well, I don't love you. And you—" I undid the clasp around my neck— "can have your fucking ring back."

"Don't be stupid," he bit out before I could throw it at him. "Keep it. And don't take it off."

* * *

I was chainsmoking out my bedroom window, batting mosquitoes away with the hand that held my lighter, when Ponyboy came to find me. Didn't even bother to knock, either.

"Ugh, can't breathe worth shit in here," he started right off complaining, then snatched a cigarette right out of the pack. "And put a shirt on, will you?"

"It's my room, first of all—" I snapped my bra strap just to annoy him— "it's hot outside. Second, I ever hear you're drag racin' again, I'm tellin' Darry before you can say 'grounded for life'."

"Maybe I'll tell Darry you was supposed to be grounded all day and just got home," he shot back, flicking his ashes in my direction. There was a current of discontent running beneath both of our skins, I could feel it setting every strand of my hair on end, about to blow. It was all coming down to who cracked first. "Out with _Dally_."

"There ain't no more me and Dally," I said, and made the mistake of turning my head towards him.

"Did he hit you?" Ponyboy pulled my hand away from my cheek, revealing the red, swollen weal under my left eye. "Jasmine, what the _hell_ —"

"I hit him first," I said, remembering how blood had spilled down his chin, and thought about shoving him back out the door. "Couples fight, Pone, you'd know that if you got a girlfriend."

(I couldn't parse his expression, a flash between incredulity and panic, like I'd suggested he try to get with a lamp or a table. I wouldn't be able to parse it until much later.)

"So what are we gonna do 'bout the situation?" he asked, his thumbs in his belt loops. "It ain't lookin' so good."

Fear, sharp and cold, dug into my guts like a knife. I dropped my cigarette onto the lawn, sparks flying across the dead grass— I was lucky I hadn't set the whole thing on fire. "What situation?"

"I ain't some dumb little kid no more, you know?" There was genuine betrayal on his face, my mother's face, the mother who never would've forgiven me for this. "What's goin' on with Joe, _Jesus_. Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't snitch to Darry."

"Shut the hell up, _kid_ , you don't know your ass from your elbow." I flared my nostrils like a bull, bearing down on him, though it wasn't really him I was angry at. It had always been easier for me to find conduits for my anger than to address the root causes, and Pony was standing right there, looking so maddeningly self-righteous I wanted to smack it off. "If I'd told you, you could've blabbed it all over creation, or it could've been beaten outta you. Mind your business, I got it handled."

"What's wrong with you?" he burst out, a child's desperate tantrum. "How the hell can you just be calm about this? You're so... I dunno, Jas. It's like you ain't even my sister. You're one of those broads from the downtown outfits, you're all messed up."

 _... Ain't even my sister?_

"If only we could go back to the good old days, huh." I sucked hard on the filter of my Kool, wishing I could breathe fire once I exhaled. "You an' me, sitting 'round the kitchen table, fightin' over who got to be Mom's favorite while Dad was out with Darry and Soda—"

"Wasn't much of a fight." He smirked nastily at me. "I was her favorite."

With a snarl, I pushed him towards that doorway, despite how he curled his toes into the carpet and tried to resist me. "Get out," I hissed, "and you better keep that goddamn mouth shut. I'm goin' to Texas by the end of the month, but you're stuck here with Darry's rules 'til you're eighteen, and I got enough ammo to make four years miserable."

He flipped me the bird as he stalked down the hall. "If you're gonna get Soda killed—" he slammed his bedroom door behind him— "maybe we'll be better off with you there."

* * *

About the Kavanaugh confirmation... I've had a hell of a difficult time the past few weeks over it, and I thought that considering the subject matter of this story that it'd be pretty negligent of me not to address it, especially since I know a lot of survivors are reading this. I'm so sorry, for all of us, that this happened, and I hope everyone's taking care of themselves :(


	27. Survival of the Fittest

And we've FINALLY gotten to the events of the book here, so time for me to make a disclaimer— major canon events are remaining the same, for better or for worse, but I'm gonna reserve the right to disregard/shift certain things around.

Also... there's some really terrible (but sadly period-appropriate) rhetoric about sexual abuse here, please be warned.

* * *

"I want you to have this," Rose told me, fumbling for something inside the console as she skidded towards a red light. She was drunk, I could smell it, but I still hadn't hesitated to accept a ride to school from her— I never would've been able to go anywhere with my father if I had standards that high. "Go on, honey, take it."

"Oh, we're not Catholic," I said, turning the rosary over in my hands. "We're Presbyterian. I think." Well, Mom had dragged us to a Presbyterian church, Dad had cited Marx to get to listen to football on the radio, and none of us had entered any house of worship since Pony's sad attempt at saving our souls. I didn't remember the last time I'd flipped through a Bible, much less taken it to heart. "I mean, I appreciate the thought, but—"

She pursed her frosted pink lips, exasperated by the heathen in her passenger seat. "I'm gettin' you enrolled in the school I used to go to, Sacred Heart. You'll meet a lot of nice girls there, girls from good families."

On an intellectual level, I more than understood that I needed to hightail it out of Tulsa. On a personal level, I almost cranked down the handle to puke out the window. "That prob'ly costs a lot of money," I said neutrally, fighting the urge to kick my feet up on the dash. "I ain't fancy, I can go to a regular school."

Anything but matriculating with a bunch of Brenda Whites. I'd get expelled just like Angela had, within a couple of weeks.

"I know Darry can't afford to send you to college." She shifted gears noisily. "But I can."

For all the time he spent nagging Pony about it, I didn't think that the idea had ever crossed his mind. "Girls... don't _go_ to college." My mother had talked about me going to secretary school, but my parents had mostly counted on me getting married, like every other broad in our neighborhood. If there was any money left over, Soda would've probably been offered up to higher education before me.

"It's 1965, honey, plenty do." She tapped ash from her cigarette onto the road. "Where else are you gonna find a good husband, at the DX?"

The progressiveness and conservatism at war within her fascinated me, but she kept talking before I could press her on it. "I want you to get your act together," she said, "that's all. You're a smart girl, I seen your report cards. Get your act together, and I'll pay for you to go anywhere."

I tried to imagine life in Lubbock, with my aunt and her husband and son, and part of it lured me in like a siren song, the thought of just leaving Dallas and Angela and my brothers behind. I'd start some swanky private school in a gated neighborhood, where smoking was an automatic suspension and the textbooks were younger than my parents; I'd do ballet and violin and tennis camp like a well-raised young lady; maybe I _would_ even go on to college. My biggest worry would be if I'd worn the same sweater set twice in one week.

... It sounded like my mother's life, the one she'd run off with a half-Apache dealer to escape, and that stopped my imagination dead in its tracks. No matter where I went, no matter what I did, I couldn't outrun myself. Couldn't outrun the restlessness that burned inside me like acid, made me want to stay right where I was and see just how badly things played out.

* * *

"I can't believe it." If Johnny started crying on the math homework I still hadn't finished, I was fixing to smack him— I'd lose points I couldn't afford to lose for smeared ink. "Things were goin' so well, too."

"For the past two weeks?" I couldn't help but snark. "C'mon, Johnnycake, she was just a fling. She ain't worth all this."

He stared at me from behind his dark bangs. "She's your best friend, Jas, _c'mon_."

"Was." The word hurt more than I had expected it to, the past tense, devastating in its finality. "With friends like her, dunno who needs enemies."

"I can't believe Dally would—" I could see the cognitive dissonance warring on his face, before he came up with an answer that satisfied him, unquestioning denial. "It don't matter. He must've had a good reason."

"Dally's a dick, there's your reason." I played with the ring dangling around my neck as I said it. "You don't need to hero-worship him all the time, you know, he don't exactly hang the moon and stars. It's okay to be pissed off."

"Should you even be at school?" He gave me a little kick under the table. "Ain't you afraid you're gonna get stabbed?"

"No King would be caught dead in the halls of Will Rogers." But as I said it, I craned my neck to look out the window, like I'd see one lying in wait with a switchblade. "You still go here with Bob Sheldon and his merry men, don't you? Seems a little more dangerous to me."

(I still felt an uneasy tension weighing down my joints, as I lived on borrowed time, in snatches of disembodied moments that didn't form a coherent future. Would I be gunned down one day like Carlos Ramirez had been, have my throat slit in some deserted alleyway— feel a knife slide through my back years later, when I'd let myself forget about the threat?)

Voices wafted over to me as Johnny got up to go to shop class, giving me a worried, skittish look as he left— Brenda and her posse gathered together by the shelves, snickering. I'd normally ignore them, I had a lot bigger fish to fry than whatever they were getting up to these days, but hearing the name 'Shepard' was enough to make me slam my book shut and swivel around.

"Her brother Curly says she's havin' her appendix out, but—" Brenda mimed scooping powder up with her fingernail and snorting it, then dissolved into a fit of giggles. "Everyone knows she's a druggie."

"She's always been a freak, maybe she had an abortion go wrong," Debbie Weiss said with relish, barely trying to keep her voice down. "Her stepdaddy— you know how I used to be friends with her, back in junior high?" They all nodded. "Well, I went over her house once, and he's just feelin' up her..." She prodded her sweater-encased breasts for emphasis. "Right in the middle of the kitchen, too, but she didn't yell or anything. I would've hollered loud enough to wake the dead."

"If somethin' like that happened to _me_ , I think I'd just kill myself, God." Brenda pretended to pick dirt out from under her nails. "No _normal_ man's ever gonna want her. She's damaged goods."

"This ain't right," Cherry cut in— all I could see was a flash of her brilliant red hair, but I imagined her pressing her lips together, arms crossed in maternal disapproval. "Brenda, that's sick— if her stepdaddy really touches her—"

"Oh, come _on_ ," Brenda said, "look at the way she dresses, with her skirts rolled up like that— she's just askin' for some man to have his way with her. And if she didn't like it, Debbie's right, she would've yelled." Her gum snapped. "She's a spic. They don't know how to act."

"You wanna say that again?" Propelled by a mixture of bone-deep shame and anger that licked at my insides like flame, I strode over to her. I wanted to rip every strand of her hair out. I wanted to kill her, and realized that I was one of the people who _could_ kill.

"What are you doin' here, squaw?" Brenda asked, picking at an imaginary stray thread at the end of her blouse cuff; the other girls nervously stepped back, unsure of how this would play out. "Don't you have some speed to push or somethin'?"

"Don't you have a mouth to shut before I staple it closed for you?"

She just smirked at me, and a voice inside my head told me to walk away, that I'd faced so much more threatening adversaries than some bitch who'd bullied me in grade school, that words couldn't hurt Angela worse than she'd already been hurt. "Why do you even care?" She leaned back against the shelf, lazily, the tip of her tongue darting a little past her lips. "Your redskin daddy crawl between the sheets with you too?"

It took two teachers and the librarian to pull me off of her.

* * *

"Jasmine Eugenia," Darry drawled, pulling a beer out of the fridge, "you just can't _imagine_ the phone call I got from your principal this afternoon. Something 'bout you roughin' up a star pupil."

"So I got a paddling, for Chrissakes." I stirred the mashed potatoes, cussing under my breath when I saw how lumpy they looked— Mom had taught me better, but I had never been paying very close attention. "Like you an' Soda never did— git outta here!"

"I didn't know ol' Jones even paddled girls," Soda said with an impressed whistle, licking his index finger— I brandished my wooden spoon at him. "Thought it was just detentions for the fairer sex."

"Like he can swing worth shit when it's a broad," I snorted, sprinkling some okra into the pot. "Probably just wanted to see how my ass looked bent over his desk."

Soda snickered, and I was glad of it, because I was actually bluffing— it had hurt worse than I'd imagined, the principal tired of hearing my name referred to him with longer and longer strings of expletives. I hadn't hollered, though, wanted to prove that Curtises didn't flinch... even the female ones. "C'mon, it ain't no big deal, Darry. You an' Soda practically lived at the principal's office."

For all the times Dad had come down on the boys like a sack of bricks for fighting, with tremendous force and agility, he'd dropped out of school in eighth grade and considered the place a sort of mandatory daycare, at best. I knew exactly whose name was about to be invoked, and I tensed up in anticipation.

Darry popped open the tab and downed half the can before saying anything. "Mom never would've acted like this. She wouldn't cuss—"

"I dunno what Mom y'all had, but she sure wasn't mine." Not the first time I'd ever thought that. "The woman cussed like a sailor."

"Fine, then," he conceded, "at least she wouldn't have fought like some fishwife. Goddammit, Jasmine, when you gonna start bein' a lady, huh?"

"Yeah, well, I ain't _Mom_ , and I'm never gonna be." I knocked the spoon against the wall of the pot, stung by the assertion. "Sorry to disappoint."

"You do disappoint, so you better cut this bullshit out." Darry crushed the can in his big fist, but the harshness of his words was levied by the worried lines in his forehead. "I got enough on my plate without you settlin' whatever girl problems you have with your fists. You're too old to be actin' like this, you hear me?"

"Them's strange words from a guy who gets into fights with Socs all the time." I clutched a handful of my skirt to steady myself. "If you heard what they said about Angela—"

"I'm damn tired of her," Darry snapped, "she's dragged you into more trouble than I can shake a stick at. You're a girl, you shouldn't even _want_ to fight."

"Mom wasn't just y'all's maid, you know." I slammed the spoon down harder than necessary. "She would've been on my side, she wouldn't have wanted me to just stand by while they talked that dirty shit 'bout her."

The trouble was that we were trying to reconcile a duality— the acid-tongued matriarch she'd been when we were children, wrangling a house Dad could never handle, and the doting housewife she'd transformed herself into after he'd gotten out of prison. Darry and Pony had selective amnesia about the early years, leaving just me and Soda to rain on the parade.

 _I was her favorite_. He had been, her Ponykid, her golden last boy who'd understood her love of books and piano and Monet. I'd gotten nothing from her but the curl in my hair and a mouth that wouldn't quit.

Darry sighed an irritated, huffy sigh, pressing two fingers up to his temple. "Jas, trust me, dirty shit 'bout that broad was probably true."

"That her stepdaddy used to touch her?" My eyes narrowed so sharply, they were like a cat's at midday. "Yeah, maybe the way she was playin' Barbies _really_ turned him on."

(I didn't mention what Brenda had said about Dad. Couldn't manage to make the words come out.)

Darry looked stricken, but I knew he'd rather die than admit he'd made a bad judgement call— we were the same kind of stubborn— so Soda swooped in to mediate. "Jas, you didn't tell us nothin', did ya? And Darry, just let it go, c'mon. We made permanent assprints in the chairs in front of the principal's office, Dad said we Curtises are a real scrappy bunch."

Darry went over to the fridge to grab another beer, which would've been Dad's response, honestly. "Girls with brothers don't fight, you hear me? You better not act like you ain't got no home trainin' again."

"Or what?" My lips pressed together and twisted into a smirk. "Get a lickin' at school, get one at home?"

His hand hovered over his belt buckle with too much panache to be serious. "Y'all better quit pushing me, swear to God..."

It was a useless threat to hover in front of me, though he did on the regular; I'd never much cared about getting whooped, unlike Pony, who'd start whimpering at the insinuation. I didn't even think he had it in him to hit us, not when the man was practically the dictionary definition of all bark and no bite. The ridiculous urge to laugh swelled up in me like a flooding river, that my brothers still thought they needed to protect me from schoolyard tussles, when really I was the one protecting them.

"Where's Ponyboy, huh?" Darry tapped the toe of his work boot against the kitchen tile. "That kid ain't got the sense God gave a goose— dinner's ready, it's gettin' dark out, and he's out in them streets doin' whatever he wants to do." He pointed at each of us in turn. "If y'all didn't just encourage him to disobey me—"

A scream rent the air, coming in through the open living room window, and we all recognized it as the scream of our own. "Stay here," Soda and Darry said to me in unison, darting out the door one after another.

* * *

I didn't immediately spring to my feet when Pony stumbled back inside, leaning on Soda more for comfort than support of a limp; I couldn't deny the sharp, alarmed pang that went straight through my skull as I saw the cut on his forehead, though. "What happened to the kid?" I addressed in the direction of— oh God, where had Dallas come from?

"Went walkin' home by himself and got jumped," Darry said with a possibly affectionate rub of his knuckles to the top of Pony's head. "Kid, how many times I gotta tell you, you don't stroll around this neighborhood alone like it's a playground? If you had to, you shoulda carried a blade, at least."

"Lay off him, if he'd carried a blade, Socs would've just used that as an excuse to cut him to ribbons." Soda glared at Darry, the only one of us who could ever succeed at swaying him. "Ain't his fault they decide to lay in on us for plain ol' livin' here."

"You better put a bandaid on that," Darry told Pony instead of responding, shoving him towards the tiny bathroom we all shared.

"Awh, c'mon, Darry, I'm gonna look like a sissy—"

"You're really gonna look like somethin' else if you get gangrene and your face rots all green," Darry replied mercilessly, parroting one of Mom's eternal lines. "Git."

Pony reluctantly left, and once he was gone, Darry groaned and put his palm up to his forehead. "What the hell was he thinkin', huh? Just decides to stroll on home like we live on Park Avenue. I told him a million times, 'specially when it's dark out, get someone else to come with you. But no, Ponyboy wants to go to the movies alone, 'cause we distract him too much with our talkin'—"

"Lay _off_ him, Darry." Soda's voice sliced through his complaints. "He just got jumped, for fuck's sake, you really think now is the time to start leapin' down his throat 'bout what he shouldn't have been doin'?"

"I'm so sick and tired of you always stickin' up for them, you have no idea."

"I wouldn't have to keep stickin' up for them if you didn't keep crawlin' up their asses, would I—" Soda nagged him all the way down the hall to his bedroom, leaving me and Dallas alone. Together.

"You're a hot little piece," Dallas said with his hands jammed in his pockets. "Really are. I didn't think it'd bruise, I'm sorry, baby."

Those were my daddy's words, coming home late, reeking of cheap whiskey, crank crystals overflowing from his pockets, another woman's perfume in the crook of his neck. "That's really makin' my panties slide down, that I'm a 'hot little piece'. You ever think anythin' else about me?"

"Dunno," he said, "that used to be more than enough to drop 'em."

"Go home, Dallas." I dug the spoon into the bowl with more force than strictly necessary, almost enough to splatter mashed potatoes onto the front of his already-dirty t-shirt. God, I couldn't believe I used to suck his dick when he showered twice a week, if that. "I'm busy, I got shit to do here."

"You really gonna stand here and say you won't miss me?" he pressed relentlessly, swarming around me like a fly that wouldn't stay still long enough to get swatted. "Why don't you just admit it to yourself, honey— you like the adrenaline, you like the danger. If it ain't me, it's gonna be another guy who'll give you what you want."

"Who, Curly?" I said, enjoying the way his teeth ground together at the name. "Man, you got that much right— dangerous hoods are a dime a dozen in this neighborhood. Maybe I'll even find one who won't slap me around."

He rustled my hair with his hot breath. "You slapped me first, princess."

Even as we said all of this, I still hadn't moved to take Dallas's ring off of my neck. I thought he might lean over to kiss me, when—

"Don't touch her." Pony came back onto the scene, his judging green eyes narrowed dangerously, and I took the opportunity to move away from Dallas and start scooping those damn mashed potatoes onto plates.

"The hell's wrong with you?" Dallas scowled, tilting Pony's chin up to see where the tip of the blade had entered his throat. "Ain't you got no _god_ damned sense? If you won't pack heat, you at least shouldn't walk around helpless like some newborn baby."

He'd die of embarrassment if he realized how much he sounded like Dad, right down to the fists on his hips. "You hit my fucking sister, what the fuck's wrong with _you_ , huh, Dallas?" Pony said with an amount of nerve I didn't think he could have without downing a pitcher of beer first. I mean, I talked back to him all the time, but I was screwing him, it gave me a certain amount of leverage the other members of our gang didn't have.

"Your sister," he winked at me, "she might be a good woman, if there was somebody there to slap her every minute of her life." He brushed the hair off of my eye, but even the slightest touch of his fingers on my face hurt; I cringed away from him.

"Leave her the fuck alone—"

"Don't give me that white knight shit, kid, you ain't no good at it. You ain't even been in pussy since the day you came out one." He rolled his eyes, far back enough that you could only see the whites. "You still comin' to the Nightly Double tomorrow?"

"For the last time, Dallas, go _home_ , or whatever you call the places you squat," I said as Pony nodded. "I ain't my mama, I ain't gonna feed you."

"Baby—" he sauntered towards the door and kicked over the umbrella stand on his way out— "this ain't just a job you can walk away from."

"Jas—" Pony tried to grab the end of my sleeve, unable to tear his eyes away from the place where Dallas had just been.

"Don't pretend you don't know what we was talkin' about." I couldn't shake the electrical current running between us, that as much as I wanted to hate him, I wanted him to come back and plunge his hand between my legs even more. "Go wash up. It's time for dinner."

* * *

Pony certainly didn't let the matter of my delinquency drop. In his usual fashion, he quietly brooded throughout the entire meal, his piercing stares at me interrupted by Steve and Two-Bit throwing corn bread at each other, and showed up in my doorway just as I'd tried to pick my artistic career back up.

"Hey." He prodded the edges of the bandaid and scowled, though not exactly at me. "Damn, this hurts."

I paused in the middle of a curlicue. "You shouldn't have been strollin' around by yourself, dumbass, without a blade neither."

"Funny," he said in a voice too old for him, "you oughta take your own advice. But I guess you're plannin' on usin' Soda as a shield—"

"Shut the fuck up." The tip of the pencil snapped. "Just shut the fuck _up._ Even you gotta realize Saint Soda wouldn't be in this mess if he hadn't started runnin' errands for Tiber."

When Pony opened his mouth again, he sounded as desperate and pleading as a child. "I could do somethin'—"

" _Look_ at you." I ran my hand up and down in the air, taking in his entire slender frame. "You're a skinny fourteen-year-old kid, you can't even fight off some spoiled high school boys jumpin' out of a Corvette. What the hell are you gonna do around real thugs, quote Shakespeare at them?"

"Soda's sixteen."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Listen, Pone, he's gonna be fine, okay?" I was trying to convince myself more than him at this point. "I'll go to Lubbock before anything can happen. I promise. It'll all work out."

"I'm sorry," he said vaguely and reluctantly, and left before I could reply— if I had known what he'd do over the next few days, the next few weeks even, I would've chased after him and wrapped my arms around his neck and told him that I was sorry, too. As it was, I picked the pencil up again, but when my drawing looked back at me, all I saw was something grotesque and perverse, something that never should've been allowed to exit my head.


	28. Collateral Damage

Warning, there's some mildly gory imagery of a wound getting stitched up, if that turns your stomach.

Also, chapter 29 is very close to being done, so you can expect that one to be up sometime this week ;)

* * *

I was waiting for a King to get the drop on me, dreading the moment of collision. Really, in retrospect, I'd forgotten that I had plenty of _other_ enemies eager to get the drop on me.

"You lil' bitch—" Bob slammed me up against the lockers hard enough for the metal grate to scrape my back— "that _wasn't_ coke you sold me."

"Ain't my fault you're too dumb to tell crushed aspirin from the real McCoy," I said unwisely. " _Caveat, emptor_ , huh?"

"I want my fucking money back."

"Well, you can't have it, some of us got bills to pay." I felt dangerously relaxed, despite the tense situation, from the barbs swimming in my blood; I needed at least three to get through the school day anymore. "Next time you try to roll into my hood, jump one of my brother's boys, you remember you got off lucky losin' a couple greenbacks."

His mouth fell open, shut, fell open again. "Do you know who I _am_?" He let out a startled little laugh. "My daddy's richer than God, he paid for half this school. I could ruin whatever you wanna call a life."

I tilted my head and pouted my lips a little. "Daddy buys you a lot, huh? Is that to make up for never bein' around?"

He slammed his fist into my eye, the pain as knuckle collided with bone exploding in a bright starburst— I hadn't realized repeating an errant rumor would have such a strong effect on him, but I kicked my knee into his balls anyway. If he wanted a fight, well, he wasn't the first dissatisfied customer I'd ever encountered, and I was going down swinging.

"Hey, what the fuck?"

I'd never been happier to see Curly in my life than when he was jumping a guy half a head taller than him, clawing at the back of his Madras shirt, trying to pull him off me. "What the fuck?" he said again after he'd gotten Bob down, his breath ragged. "You fight girls now, white boy, you think that makes you hot shit?"

Some Soc guys, they really just picked on the lowest common denominator from our side, scrawny, underfed kids who no one would miss if they vanished off the face of the earth— and crumbled if they were confronted by genuine hoods, trained, experienced fighters who could kick their asses right back to the West side. To Bob's credit, he didn't flinch, but gave Curly a hard shove in return. "Grease, you wouldn't understand what's goin' on here with two hands and a map, so why don't you just—"

Curly slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his switchblade— it was a week's suspension if you got caught with one of those on school property, not to mention illegal, but boys like him treated breaking the law like a bingo card anyway. "Don't touch her, or you're gonna regret it. She's got a lot of friends."

Bob almost reached for his own knife, his fingers clamped around the handle, but he let go and stalked down the hall before things could get deadly. "You better watch yourself," he called over his shoulder, "I'm gonna hit you where it hurts."

"I sold him crushed aspirin," I told Curly after he'd no doubt driven off home in his Mustang, ready to cry to his mama about this. "It's kind of a long story." _Thank you,_ I wanted to say too, _you're a lot like your uncle, in a good way,_ but I still wasn't sure whether he'd intervened because I was a girl or because I was one of _his_ girls.

Tim would've told me to be more careful, that broads had no business selling anything, did my brothers know where I was at? Curly didn't give me any of that shit, which I was immeasurably grateful for, just gave his battered knuckles an admiring glance. "So, you and Dally cruised your way down to Splitsville, huh?"

 _Yeah, and I went to go sleep with your brother right after I found out, oops._

"Now really seem like the best time to be worryin' about my love life?" Then I did a double take. "Wait a minute, how would you know?"

"Oh, Tim told me you showed up at our place and tried to sleep with him."

Never trust a fucking Shepard indeed.

"Said I should make a move on you now, but you can just forget about it." He dug his nails into his biceps and tried to seem indifferent, but a good first step would've been looking away from my tits. "I'm not gonna be your _second-choice_ rebound or nothin'—"

I silenced him with a kiss, leaning forward on my tiptoes and acting on pure impulse; he stood stiff for a second, then melted into me, his tongue darting out to meet mine. "I'm sick of Dally's shit. Let's have some fun."

I'd either be dead or in Texas in the next few weeks. What did I really have to lose.

"Shit, that's good enough for me," he said, and slid his hand up my shirt, pressing me up against the lockers again.

* * *

Alberto's car was much too souped-up for a hood of questionable effectiveness and net worth. That wasn't the most suspicious thing about him rolling into the Will Rogers parking lot and tailing after me.

Before I could run in the opposite direction, he got out and threw me over his shoulder in a hug that crushed my ribs; dazed, I wondered what had been in my morning coffee, if maybe someone had dissolved an acid tablet in there. "Honey, you did it, you fucking did it—"

"... What did I do, exactly?"

He finally settled me back down on the ground; I fought the urge to clutch my head as the world spun around me, but he held me steady with a grip that was more enthusiastic than restraining. "We got Tiber's support, we're gonna drive them Kings straight into the Gulf of Mexico..." I could barely decipher his manic ramblings, he spoke so fast. "Sweetheart, I'd kiss you, I really would, but I told you I respect women. Here, have some Jack." He got back inside and pulled a brown paper bag out from under the driver's seat.

Against my better judgement (I would be in deep shit if I was caught drinking in the school parking lot), I got inside— I wanted to down half the bottle, but instead I only limited myself to a few burning gulps. "What happened?"

"Don't you be playin' coy." He put his arm around me, drawing me into his chest. "Your brother's a Tiger now. Everything's good, everything's settled."

I choked on a swallow of whiskey and felt like I was drowning from the inside-out; Alberto thumped me hard enough on the back to knock my lungs out through my mouth. "Honey, Jesus, little sips, don't get ahead of yourself. You're five foot nothin', come on."

"He's a _what_?" How could he have—

Ponyboy. Of course it was Ponyboy, telling me that he was going to do something after all, I should've guessed when he telegraphed all of his moves in advance. And now he'd signed Soda's death warrant.

"You deaf or somethin'?" He smirked at me. "He's a _Tiger_. And can I just say, I think his talents are gonna go to good use. Always liked that outfit."

His admiring prattle went in one ear and out the other— I wasn't sure whether I wanted to vomit or shit myself, but either way, I felt desperately claustrophobic trapped in this parking lot with him. "Look, _chica_ , there ain't no room for remorse in this life. Kid dug his own grave gettin' involved with the Tigers at all— Eli ain't Timmy, he ain't the type to let people fight for him on some kinda mercenary basis. You play with fire, you're gonna get burned." He shook his head with a mix between amusement and irritation. "I'm havin' my doubts about Timmy, you know? He shows up at my place and threatens to beat my skull in for gettin' you involved, like this is his first goddamn rodeo— he's lucky I ain't Luis, he would've mopped the floor with him. Kid saw his thirteen-year-old cousin's brains blown out in front of him and he can't even handle _your_ brother joinin' a gang? Man, sometimes I can't believe he's my real—"

"Real what?"

"... Nephew." Even the Virgin Mary bobblehead on his dash seemed to be giving me an side-eye. "Come on, you know... Curly's got a different... never mind. Now, Soda, he's your daddy's son, all right."

"No, no, he ain't— my daddy, he changed." Dad didn't even let us visit him in prison, all eighteen months he served of his sentence, said he never wanted any of us to see the inside of one. "He would've killed him."

Jesus, he'd belted the shit out of Darry just for spraying a couple of walls and selling grass at Millard Fillmore Junior High.

"You don't have to tell me that he _changed_ , I was there for the whole thing, including his new holy book, Das Kapital. I didn't even know he could read more than Dick and Jane— guess they taught him in the can." He irritably flicked the ash off his cigarette. "I mean you can't deny biology, that crazy motherfucker was thirty-three with four kids and he was running around with the product like some teenager with an AK-47. I'm still surprised he's the one who kicked it, not Carlos."

I just looked at him, too stricken to reply, and took another miserable sip from the bottle. "I could drive you down to the strip," he offered, straightening the edge of my hair ribbon. "Get you loaded, as much as you want— on me. You'll forget all about this."

"No," I said, the car door pushed open and my feet on the ground before I finished the word. "No. I gotta go."

* * *

Soda was bent prostrate over the kitchen sink when I came home, the water running red as he rinsed his face off, but my eyes weren't fixed on his wrecked body— instead on the blue bandana, stained dark, that circled his left bicep.

"What did you do?" It came out as a half-hysterical howl. "What did you _do_ to yourself, oh my God—"

Our daddy's son, Alberto's words taunted me and circulated around my head, he was our daddy's son through and through. Our daddy would've ripped the bandana right off him, but that wouldn't be enough to save him now. Nothing would be.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook; I couldn't remember him having been violent with me before, not like this, and my teeth rattled in my skull. "Why did the hell didn't you tell me? Why the hell did _Ponyboy_ know before I did?"

"I didn't even tell Pony, he found out all on his own, it ain't exactly much of a secret." I'd bitten down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood; I pressed my tongue up to the raw wound. "You was never supposed to know, okay? I'm skippin' town with Rose anyway, that was gonna take care of it—"

"Yeah, and if you caught a bullet through your skull, she could take you down to Lubbock in a casket that's been nailed shut." He let me go to rake his fingers through his hair, yanking out long, golden strands, and slammed his wrists down on the kitchen counter with enough violence to crack the bone— the kitchen didn't feel large enough to contain his anger. "Why the fuck would you do this? You get that bored at home, you want an adventure? 'Cause you can't just turn off the TV now."

"Soda, please, I was protectin' Angela—"

"He told me everythin'— I can't believe I was so fuckin' stupid I didn't figure it out myself. For Chrissakes, I thought Dallas was pimpin' you out." He knit his hands together over his diaphragm and pressed down, then gave a bitter laugh. "You been dealin', just like Dad. I didn't even know broads could _do_ that."

"Broads can do a lot more than you think." Though it was irrational, though I really had no right to feel this way, I felt anger burning its way out of me like acid corroding sheet metal; at those three mama's boys, who'd seen nothing and didn't know shit about shit, who still thought they had the right to pass judgement on me. 'You didn't have a lot of problems with it when I was sellin' your knockoff coke— that almost ended real badly for me, by the way."

"What the hell is _wrong_ with you?" He'd said the same to me after I'd come home from Tim's bonfire, but there was ten times more urgency and pain to the question now. "You've always been reckless, okay, you always drove Mom and Dad crazy, I know that, but it's like you don't even care whether you live or die anymore."

"Why would you do this?" I countered instead answering a question for which there was no simple answer— _my parents died, my boyfriend let me and it felt like coming up for air after drowning for a very long time, my daddy didn't love me enough, a bored boy at a frat party loved me a little too much,_ all circled my mind like a drain, but it would be cheap and dishonest to throw excuses at him. I was different now; I wanted that, to be honest, to have an aspect of me that was real. "You didn't have to... I wouldn't have let you."

"You're my kid sister," he said like 'gravity makes things fall to the ground' or 'the Pope is Catholic'. "I'm always gonna look after you. Get used to it."

"That the only reason?"

The two middle Curtis siblings— we needed adrenaline like a preacher needed pain, like a needle needed a vein. Soda had felt bored and inadequate in his dead-end gas station job, missed his old days of running wild around town, sunk deeper and deeper into the life and hadn't found much objectionable... I didn't want to finish the rest of the thought.

He bit his lip and kicked at the torn-up linoleum floor. "Shit, I can't even blame you none..." He jabbed at a massive cut above his eyebrow— he'd wear that scar until the day he died— and winced as his fingers came back bloody. "I'm the one who was playin' with fire, ain't I? Should've figured it'd end somethin' like this."

"That's gonna need stitches," I said quietly. "It ain't gonna heal right on its own."

"Well then, stitch me up, doll." He collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs and gave me an expectant look; I got Mom's old sewing kit off the shelf, without even thinking about it. We didn't have the money to take him to a doctor, and I couldn't imagine coming up with a good lie at the hospital anyway, dodging the suspicious questions raised by a minor with wounds like that. I just prayed he didn't have any internal bleeding. "And get me some of that— oh, for Chrissakes, I know you know where Dad stashed all his _medicinal_ whiskey. Even I ain't tuff enough to handle this sober."

The corner of my mouth inappropriately twitching up, I handed him a dusty bottle; he unscrewed the cap and guzzled it like a man dying of thirst. "Darry can't know about this," he said with a shudder he couldn't repress as I threaded the needle. "No way in hell. That vein in his forehead is finally gonna burst and leave no survivors."

"Oh, I think he's gonna notice something's a little off when he finds you beat up like a piñata." His flesh felt strange and waxy under my fingers, as I punctured the skin and tried to connect the two separated ends. If we'd had a penny for school, I could've been a nurse, and a damn good one too, with all the first aid I had to perform.

"I'll tell him I ran into those guys who jumped Ponyboy, gave them a taste of my fists—"

Small stitches, Mom had told me, clucking over how I'd never been able to make a needlepoint pillow or a sampler; her hand over mine, a futile attempt at guiding me. What would she think now? "You're undefeated in fights," I pointed out; it was something I'd once liked crowing about, that even Tim Shepard couldn't whip my brother. "He'll never believe it."

"He's believed plenty of your lies before. Helps him sleep at night."

The needle slipped; his blood, blooming dark from the puncture wound, spilled over onto my fingers, seeping into the tiny creases in the skin of my hands. "C'mon, be careful, honey," he said with a nervous skip of a laugh. "You're killin' me here."

* * *

"I am never lettin' that kid out again without an army of bodyguards."

It never ceased to amuse me that Darry came down the hardest on the best-behaved child in this family, but I didn't dare say that out loud, not with him clear pacing tracks into the living room carpet. "Come on, man, it's only... two in the morning." Soda tried to hide a yawn behind his battered palm. "How many times did we make Dad wait up for us?"

"Too many, I'm startin' to understand why he did it with a beer can in hand." His next footstep was stomped hard enough to drive a hole through the floor. "Maybe I should call the fuzz."

"Call the _what_?" Soda gaped at him; our expressions mirrored each other. "In _this_ neighborhood? This ain't the time to crack jokes 'bout lil' Indian kids."

"Oh please, he looks white as driven snow, they might at least send some donut-eatin' rookie after him."

"You really want the state to find out you lost him?" I mindlessly flipped through the pages of _Peyton Place_ — a taste for literature our mother forbade was one of the few things Darry and I had in common. "Maybe Aunt Rose has room for another orphan."

(I wasn't so sure I was ready to see him, anyway. I didn't know if I'd try to pummel him to death with my fists... or pummel him to death with my fists.)

"Dammit, I'm gonna kill that kid if he just strolls right in here," Darry said, conceding defeat and collapsing back into Dad's chair. "He's got one more hour before I take my chances with five-o."

That was when Ponyboy strolled right in there, closing the screen door more carefully than it ever had been before; he looked startled, but unhurt. "Hey, Darry," he said with a weak wave, "how's it goin'?"

"How's it— Ponyboy, where you been? Where in God's name have you been?" Darry asked, more dangerous with this soft, raspy voice than a yell could ever be. "It's two in the mornin', kiddo. Between the three of us, we almost had Tulsa's finest after you."

"Look, I'm sorry, tonight was crazy." He moved imperceptibly back towards the door, but I noticed. I noticed everything. "Me and Johnny and Two-Bit picked up some Soc broads, then their boyfriends showed up and started givin' us static and we barely got away, and then I fell asleep in the lot with Johnny. We just lost track of time."

"You fell asleep in the lot?" Darry slashed his hand through the air, at the end of his patience. "I'm Ponyboy, I got cotton between my ears and not much else, day after I'm jumped, I lie down and take a fucking nap on some cold concrete without so much as a sweatshirt—"

"Shit, I wasn't thinkin' about it or nothin', I didn't mean to—"

"I wasn't _thinkin',_ I didn't _mean_ to," he mocked, "that's all I ever hear from you! Can't you ever use your fucking brain for once?"

"This is such bullshit," Ponyboy huffed, finally provoked to anger, "I never do nothin' wrong, compared to them, but you're always jumpin' down my throat—"

"Yeah, I'm about to show you bullshit—"

"Darry, just calm the hell down, come on," Soda said as Darry advanced on him, flinging his newspaper to the floor. "It was an accident—"

"You shut your goddamn trap," Darry bellowed, turning on him in a flash. "You got no idea how tired I am of you stickin' up for them—"

Ponyboy stepped forward when he saw Soda threatened; it was some kind of primal impulse in him, no matter the circumstances, and one that would be his undoing. "You don't yell at him!"

Darry slapped him right into the door, and the next few seconds were a warped fever dream— the way he crumpled, the sound ringing out like a gunshot, Darry staring at his reddening palm as though it had acted on its own, didn't belong to him. "Pony— Ponyboy—"

A scream died in my throat; none of us moved, trapped in suspended animation. Nobody hit in our family, not like that. Not ever. I wondered if the neighbors would call the fuzz, or, more likely, come over for the free show.

Ponyboy looked up at him with watery eyes, not just from the impact of the blow. "Fuck you."

"Pony, I didn't mean to!" Darry called out from the porch as he fled, but it was too late— kid wasn't on the A track team for nothing, and he'd already vanished into the shadows. "I didn't mean to!"

Soda immediately wrestled him to the ground, which I'd expected and was thankful for— despite being a fair bit stronger, Darry didn't even put up a token fight, just let Soda jam his elbows into his gut for a solid thirty seconds. "Why the hell would you do that, huh? Why the hell would you beat on him?"

"I didn't mean to," Darry helplessly parroted again, like one of those baby dolls you yanked the string on, "Soda, please, I didn't mean to. It just happened, I swear."

"Ain't that _just_ what you whaled on him for sayin'?" Soda pointed out with a blow to his nose, the way Dad had taught us, driving the heel of his hand up, but he didn't break it or even really bloody it. Maybe Darry looked too pathetic to deserve it. "Great job, Superman, now he's back outside in the middle of the night. I raised my ant farm in second grade better than you're raisin' that kid."

"I should go after him." Darry stared forlornly out the window. "Bring him home. He shouldn't be out on the streets at this hour."

"No," I said, my voice strangled, "just let him cool off, it'll be another fight. He'll come back in the morning and you'll sort things out."

I would never regret saying anything else more, and I regret saying so many things.

* * *

None of us went to sleep, not really. Soda fell into an uneasy doze in Dad's chair after a couple of hours, but kept jumping every time he heard footsteps outside or a truck revving up; Darry and I sat at the kitchen table with the massive pack of Marlboros Dad had stashed on top of the china cabinet, silently chainsmoking one after another, until the house reeked so bad we'd never air it out. Darry never smoked, too conscious of his athletics and health; he never normally would've watched me do it without some caustic remark about how ladies didn't smoke, even though Mom was redolent of an ashtray as long as I'd known her; between the two of us, we almost finished it. It was the first time in months we'd been able to be near each other without getting into a fight.

Around five in the morning, Two-Bit swung in through our unlocked door hard enough to slam it into the opposite wall.

"Holy fuckin' shit." Every freckle on his face stood out dark against his milky skin; he looked like he'd slept even less than the three of us. "Holy fuckin' shit, I can't believe none of this. It's like livin' in a Clint Eastwood movie or somethin'."

"We ain't had the best night, okay." I swept a hand though my hair and cussed as it got caught in a tangle; I couldn't remember the last time I'd brushed it. "This better be good."

"Wait, y'all didn't hear?" Two-Bit stumbled over to the couch and fell into it, swallowed by the cushions. "Fucking hell— I dunno how to even say it to y'all—"

"Spit it out already." My insides were frozen solid, the panic spreading to prickles in my scalp. He had the same look on his face that the attending physician had worn when he told us our parents were dead.

"Johnny and Pony got into a fight with some Socs last night— Johnny killed one of them, Bob Sheldon," he said. "They're on the lam now."


	29. Heads Will Roll

"You want a cigarette? That's traditional, ain't it?"

I remembered the first time I'd ever had a conversation with Curly longer than 'is Ponyboy here, 'cause Dad's gonna kill him if he is', sharing a pack on the playground, how much things had changed since then. "Sure," I said, taking light, breathy drags. "Sure. Why the hell not."

The springs from Curly's lumpy mattress dug into my back, and there was a deep, persistent ache between my legs; even if I hadn't been thrumming with nervous energy, I still wouldn't have been able to get comfortable. "You gonna take that off?" he asked with too much nonchalance to be believed, pointing at Dallas's ring dangling around my neck. "Or are you keepin' it until he gets tired of you?"

"Keepin' it until he gets tired of me." I hadn't bothered to put my shirt back on yet, my jeans lying in a crumpled heap at the foot of his bed. I wondered what'd happen if Tim walked in. I wondered if I'd even care. "Sorry."

"Nah, I don't give a shit." He gave me the kind of perverse smile that'd look at home on one of his uncles, but not on him, not on the kid who'd shyly asked me if he was my first, too. "I get to fuck you behind his back, don't I?"

"Quit tryna sound tough, you ain't Tim." I rested my head on his chest and listened to the unsteady whoosh of his heartbeat, the wiry hair making the sides of my neck itch. "You're a damn _romantic_. You want me to be your _girlfriend_."

"Yeah, well, you ain't gonna be, are you?" He put another smoke between my lips and gave me a light without me having to ask for it. "Guess I'll take what I can get."

Nicotine didn't smear the hard edges of my world like alcohol did, just settled me down somewhat, and it was a dirty, cheap sort of high; nausea crawled up my irritated throat, and I stubbed my second cigarette out after only a couple of drags. "I can't go back home," I said, though I knew I'd have to. "I can't. It feels like the day my parents died."

Curly snorted. "Man, if I ran away every time my brother hit me, I'd live on the damn streets."

"Don't be an ass, he slammed him into the fucking door, I saw it myself."

"Hey, look, you know I like Pony fine, I ain't callin' him a pussy." _Only implying it_. "But if he'd just slugged Darry back, shit, me and Tim fight all the time. Now he's on the lam for murder 'cause he couldn't take it like a man."

"He's not the murderer, Johnny Cade is," I tiredly corrected, though I couldn't imagine it going down in my head no matter how hard I tried. Gentle, skittish Johnny, who looked and carried himself like a kicked puppy, stabbing Bob Sheldon in the chest? He'd been too frightened to even say a word to him at the Dingo.

The whole scenario had some poetic justice, though, Bob bleeding out on the ground thanks to the boy he jumped and left for dead. I liked that.

"Don't worry about your brother, seriously."

"What do you mean, _don't worry about my brother_?" I knew that Curly had a devil-may-care streak to him, and that the Shepard brothers expressed affection more through wrestling matches than hugs, but... _not_ worrying about Ponyboy right now, despite the shit he'd caused for me? God, between him and Johnny, they had the street smarts of a scared goose. "Wouldn't you be a little worried 'bout Tim if he was runnin' from the law?"

"If that got me all hot an' bothered, I'd never get a good night's sleep again—" I punched him in the arm, hard. "All right, all right, you Curtises go off like fuckin' firecrackers— that ain't what I meant. Johnny's Indian, ain't he? Pretty obvious just from lookin' at him."

I gave him a sidelong glance out the corner of my eye. "So's Ponyboy."

Curly emitted a cross between a laugh and a cough. "You could never tell, shit, unless someone saw... you, I guess. He ain't like the rest of us, he'll get the sympathy vote from a jury. Johnny's the one who's gonna fry, c'mon, a redskin from the wrong side of the tracks? Pony, he'll be fine."

It was funny, despite our entire childhood— the cruel jokes that had followed us like ticks attached to a dog, that Pony was the milkman's broken condom and not really Dad's kid— it took until those lines for me to realize why, even more than Darry, he had so many middle-class friends and looked down his nose at the greaser girls. I groaned and flung an arm over my eyes, turning away from Curly. "I'm still worried."

Curly rolled over and planted a kiss on my open mouth. "It'll be okay," he said. "It'll be okay."

He looked young and washed-out in the wan light, and I had to laugh at my own naiveté, my stupid, childish delusion that all I'd needed to fix myself was a change of scenery. Having sex with Curly hadn't felt like sliding into a warm bath, finally comfortable and secure. It had felt like nothing at all.

* * *

I came home to Darry and Dallas circling each other like two wrestlers about to pounce, neither one willing to make the first move. The circles under Darry's eyes made them look as though they'd been blacked, but that couldn't compare to Dallas's face, trails of dried blood coming out of both nostrils and a gash cut into his left cheek. Was it the police? A fight? Did I want to know if it was both?

"I told you, man, it's a little _hurtful_ you don't believe me." Dallas's body language belied his words, though, the way he couldn't quite make eye contact as he said it. "C'mon, how am I supposed to know where them crazy kids ran off to? You think they just showed up at my door last night or somethin'?"

Darry had him by the collar before another smartass remark could leave his mouth; Dallas sure seemed to end up in that position a lot. "You're involved in everything that happens on this turf, where the _hell_ is my brother?"

"What's it to you?" Dallas put his palm against his broad chest and shoved him off— his v-neck had ripped from the force of Darry's grip, and he pawed at the jagged bit disgustedly. "Didn't get your kicks enough last night, want to have some more fun with him?"

"What?" Darry gaped at him, too dumbstruck to form a coherent sentence. "Who told you—"

"Yeah, you must feel like a big man now, Darry," he sneered, traces of his Brooklyn accent coming out in his anger, "slappin' around some fourteen-year-old kid the size of a border collie. That get your dick real hard?"

Unbidden, the memory of Norm and Dallas rolling around on the floor sprung to my mind. He never talked about the scars that littered his back, the ones on the insides of his wrists, the ones carved into his forearms, cringed away if my hands ever carelessly fell onto them. Of course this bothered him. Of course he cared.

"Dad would be ashamed of you."

Darry cocked his fist, even drew it back, but dropped it at the last second— maybe out of remorse, maybe because he feared the feral gleam in Dallas's eyes, itching for a fight. Even Darry didn't like to tangle with him, he was dangerous. "You're lyin' to me," he said, "you ain't gonna distract me that easy. Buck says he was down at the roadhouse last night, why else 'cept to see you?"

"You're the one who sent him runnin' for shelter," Dallas said, "don't think you got the right to ask much from me— or beat my head in." He shoved right past me like I was a shadow or a ghost, something insubstantial, and his fingers brushed against the doorknob. "Johnny's in this mess too, in a hell of a lot deeper than Ponykid. I got enough problems worryin' about him."

"Dallas." His head swiveled backwards the tiniest bit, more mocking than if he hadn't turned around at all. "You know if anything happens to him, I'll kill you, right?"

"Trust me, I already wanna kill _you_ , so you better step off." He slammed the door hard enough to knock a mug off the coffee table, like when he was fifteen and fighting with Dad; Darry just clutched his head, too wounded by his words to go after him, but I didn't have any of those reservations.

" _Hey_ ," I called down the street, thinking he'd already hightailed it out of there, but found him leaning against the side of the house, a Kool between his cracked lips. "You look like shit. What were you really up to last night, huh?"

"Fightin' with Tim, Curly caught me slashin' his tires and ran right to tattle to his big brother," he said smoothly. "It was worth it, though, prick won't ever screw me over again with that little sugar-in-the-engine trick. He won't see out his left eye for a week, at least, that's good enough for me."

"This ain't the time for your fuckin' jokes, Dally, you better open that mouth of yours and tell me where my brother is—"

"I told the fuzz he was cruisin' on down to Texas, last I heard." He missed striking the match, cussed as the phosphorus head flopped loosely around on the cardboard base. "You wanna go lookin' for him, you can take a ride in Two-Bit's truck, he's tryna organize an expedition down to El Paso right now."

"It don't take Albert Einstein to figure out you got information, so why won't you just cut the shit—"

"Honey, you know what makes me such a good criminal?"

" _Enlighten_ me."

"I never confide in nobody." He managed to strike it and smiled triumphantly— smoke curled around his head, as he exhaled from a drag that would've bent me over coughing. "Ever. No exceptions, not even for family... or my bitchy ex-girlfriend."

I stretched my toes out in my socks, pressed them up against the thick, uncomfortable seams. It didn't help calm me down; I still felt my anger crawl out of me, an anger I didn't know I could have on Pony's behalf. "Dally, _please,_ goddamn you—"

"No, I'm not gonna tell you, and don't give me them big, manipulative eyes," he snapped. "The more you know— the more _anyone_ knows— the more can be beaten outta you."

"He's my brother, Soda and Darry are his brothers too," I said, "you really think we're gonna call up the Tulsa World and announce where to find him?"

"He didn't _rob a fucking_ _gas station_." Dallas slashed his hand through the air— I supposed I should count myself lucky he didn't bring it down on my face again. "Bob Sheldon's daddy owns half this town, he was the goddamn ringleader of the Socs, the whole city's on fire right now... and my best friend's a murderer, not that I'm judgin' him. I got enough to take care of without managing the Curtis clan's fucking feelings on top of that."

I was more surprised by him actually admitting Johnny was his best friend than by any of his vitriol. "Anythin' at all that could convince you to grow a soul and tell us?"

He gave me a mocking grin. "Get back together with me."

" _Fuck_ you."

"I don't actually give a damn about you, ya know." The words would've stung a lot more if he hadn't bitten down on the corner of his lip as he said them. "No matter what you wanted to believe. You were just a fuck, same as Sylvia."

"That why you were beggin' me to take you back last night? Not so confident you can score more pussy?"

"This Soc broad, Cherry Valance?" He smirked at me, like he expected me to be impressed that a Soc broad would give him the time of day— but I thought even he didn't deserve her, that spineless, soft little thing, a man who respected strength above all else. "She and Sheldon were together, before he kicked it... she said she could fall in love with me, if she ever saw me again."

I leaned against the side of the house too, leaves crunching under my feet. It was getting colder; wherever Ponyboy was, did he at least have a sweatshirt on him? "Curly and I are fucking. Just thought you oughta know... it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made such an ass outta yourself."

"Yeah, I heard, half the school saw that lil' show the two of you put on." He flicked the ashes at me. "Guess that's my type. Whores."

"Eat shit," I said, a tiredness permeating my entire body like I was weighed down with stones; I didn't want to fight with Dallas anymore, not when he was far more inventive, and nasty, and impossible to wear out. "If Mom knew you were gamblin' with Pony's life for your goddamn ego trip—"

His icy blue eyes spat fire at me; he didn't so much like getting a taste of his own medicine. "I made myself a fucking accomplice for your brother, I even gave him a gun, so don't you fuckin' _dare_ tell me—"

" _A_ gun? You gave him my daddy's gun, you mean?" My eyes narrowed against the bright Tulsa sun. "So you did see him, huh. Sent him on his way."

His finger was pointed an inch away from the center of my nose; I was mesmerized by it like it was a barrel. "You shut up."

* * *

"Remind me what's so special 'bout you that I gotta tail you?"

In exchange for selling his soul to the devil, Soda had managed to procure me a rotation of bodyguards. Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on Eli being savvy enough to only spare the kind of guys he could count on not being missed.

"Joe wants me dead," I said, surveying the seedy layout of the Ribbon like Columbus surveyed the New World, "and I needed to get out of the house before I spontaneously combusted, 'cause my kid brother's an accessory to murder. Any more questions?"

Sid glared at me from behind his sandy eyelashes. "I got taken offa my corner for this shit. That's real money I'm losin'."

"How old are you, fourteen? Count yourself lucky you got any corner at all." Tim hadn't even given Curly his own yet— I didn't really blame him. "You want a smoke?"

"Yeah, sure," he said between slurpy chews on the dip in his mouth— the first and only time I'd tried it, I'd ended up vomiting in the bushes outside the house and had to tell Mom her chicken pot pie hadn't agreed with me. Dad never gave me another wad after that. "You want to make out?"

"Uh-huh, you wish." His acne scars made the skin on his cheeks look like the surface of the moon. "Ain't those kinds of benefits to this job, sorry."

"So you're some mafia princess like Angela Shepard," he said scornfully, "guess you're less of a slut than her, though."

I was too busy cussing him out in my head to notice the barrel pressed into the small of my back. "Don't move," a reedy voice told me, "don't move."

I'd never listened to anything I was told, not even when my life was at stake, and of course I immediately spun around fast enough to dislodge the imprint of the gun against my spine— to find Evie's kid brother, Tony, sticking me up. He had a cowlick on the back of his head. He didn't take enough showers.

"Kid, you're not gonna do anythin', put it down." My blood rushed in my ears like an ocean wave, the time Dad took us down to the Gulf of Mexico, crashing and crashing and crashing around me, but I was more afraid for him than I was for myself. "You ain't gonna kill me."

I couldn't believe this was who Joe had thought a decent enough assassin for me, Evie's dweeby little brother, who I'd eaten peanut butter crackers with in her den less than a year ago. He fumbled with the safety and got it stuck. "Hey, buddy, you wanna help me out here?" I hissed at Sid, who was lighting a goddamn joint when he was supposed to be saving my life.

"Help you out with what?" he said. "Kid's never seen a heater before today, I'll give you five bucks if he knows what end the bullet comes out of. Here, it's like this—" he snatched the gun out of his hands and managed to flick the safety off, then snorted hard enough to dislodge the dip buried in his cheek. "Fucking hell, you moron, this thing ain't even loaded. This really the Kings' finest?"

Tony was sweating so hard his entire face shone, like it had been covered in a layer of plastic wrap; he grasped at the bricks on the alley wall, his legs trembling just from the effort of keeping himself upright. Sid silently passed me the joint, and I took a long drag from it before I said anything. "You'd think Joe would have enough money from all them whorehouses to at least get you some ammo."

"I had to do it," he gasped out like he was drowning on the words, "I can't just not do what my leader tells me, he'll kill me—"

"Yeah, I know," I said before Sid could jump in with something more cutting and harsh— I wasn't up to cussing out some eighth grader in over his head who, judging by the growing wet patch on his crotch, had pissed himself at the thought of having my blood on his hands. "Joe doesn't want me dead."

"What?" Sid snatched his precious joint right out of my mouth and took an angry huff on it himself. "Then what the hell am I doin' here?"

"Shut up," I said without looking at him, "you know I'm right. Joe's one of the biggest kingpins in this city, if he wanted a bullet in me, one would've driven right by me by now."

"I'm not in the mood to play Nancy Drew." Sid blew marijuana smoke right in Tony's face; he looked like he'd pass out from the unfamiliar smell. "Eli gave me a job, you're right, I should finish it— god _dammit_ , we can't even shoot him, because his fucking dumb ass didn't even bother to make sure there were bullets in his gun first." He turned the heater over in his hands— Remington 1100, an outdated model, even. "Guess we could pistol whip him some. Might be fun."

I just loved the little teenage psychopaths the major gangs recruited— I didn't know if it was the copious amounts of drugs or exposure to gratuitous violence that did it to them, but either way, I was reasonably certain they were all one careless insult away from becoming spree killers. "Leave him alone, Jesus, he's my friend's kid brother... he's as dangerous as a lost puppy." I remembered when we used to say that about Johnny, before he stabbed a man to death— _no, don't think about that._ "Don't strain them muscles."

"What am I supposed to do?" Tony demanded with more balls than I'd expected. "I can't go back without finishin' the job. He'll string me up from a telephone pole."

"Come on, kid." I smiled at him. "You really wanna pump _Dally Winston's girl_ full of lead?" My smile only widened as I considered my next threat, fingered the ring I hadn't been stupid enough to throw away. "Run on outta here, and maybe I won't tell your big sister what you're up to."

He took off like a shot.

"You're tuff," Sid said, with the lack of inflection that characterized a Tiger. "My sisters, somethin' like that happened to them, they would've just turned on the waterworks or fainted dead away."

"Gee, thanks—"

"Tuff like a bulldyke."

Nothing could've stopped me from punching him in the arm, I hoped hard enough to bruise.

* * *

I needed a drink after that, I think understandably, and ended up dragging Sid down the Ribbon with me, useless as he was; he bailed the second he found some buddies in the kind of grimy hole-in-the-wall that would serve to minors, and I couldn't be bothered to search out anywhere better. "Vodka cranberry," I told the server tiredly, sliding two quarters across the bar and undoing a button on my shirt, and didn't even have to pull out my fake ID.

"Miss me yet?"

I spun around fast enough to give myself whiplash, and found Angela sitting at the end of the bar, nursing a piña colada. She gave me a little wave and made no move to get closer to me; I had to acknowledge the power move, and after tipping the bartender an extra dime and cussing under my breath, I grabbed my drink and scooted on over to her cobweb-filled corner.

"Hey, Jas," she said, popping a handful of reds into her mouth and washing them down with hard liquor, like she'd learned exactly nothing from her hospitalization. She grinned at me, wide enough that I could see the lipstick smeared on her front teeth. "So looks like some shit's gone down since I left, huh?"

"How'd you even get out at all?" I sputtered instead of answering her. "Knock out the attending nurse?"

"Girl, what do you think that place is, a maximum security prison?" She rolled her eyes. "I yanked my IV out, changed into my roommate's clothes, walked right outta there. Like a hospital wants you takin' up any more of the nurses' time."

"How the hell did you even get all the way back here? Don't tell me you hoofed it."

"Hitchhiked." She tossed her long mane over her shoulders, shook it out into what still didn't approach her usual volume— I didn't imagine hospital shampoo had done her many favors, or that she'd been home long enough to announce her presence to her brothers, much less shower. "Anyway, Ponyboy and Johnny, they're on the run for murder, huh, it's the talk of the town. I'm surprised you ain't bein' swarmed right now for autographs."

"I mean, technically, it's just Johnny on trial for murder," I said miserably. "Pony's... an accomplice or somethin', I guess. Not sure if he's gonna be charged."

"I got an idea for us," she said, manically bouncing from topic to topic— maybe it was everything she'd taken. "A big one, biggest one we've ever done."

"Yeah, well, I'm done dealin'." Dad would be ashamed of Dally— he'd be ashamed of me— I couldn't stomach holding onto another cent of dirty money. I wanted to throw what I already had into the river. "Dally and I broke up—" I wasn't certain if her fragile psyche was up to knowing I'd promptly shacked up with her brother— "I'm done."

"I had a lot of time to get some thinkin' done, just me and my cryin' relatives every now and then." She gave me another brilliant smile. "I got a whole new lease on life. More thrillin' kicks than sellin' shit."

"Do I... want to know what that lease is?"

"I don't want to die anymore. It ain't me who should be lyin' six feet under." She shotgunned the rest of her drink. "Let's kill Joe."


	30. The Longest Day

"Have you actually lost your fucking mind?" I picked up my drink and chugged it, until I was tapping the bottom of the glass to get the last drops out. It did not help, and when I looked back across the bar, Angela was still there, not just some fevered hallucination my mind had conjured up.

"By killin' my pimp? I'd say it's more of a public service."

"I thought you were half in love with him." Lord knew I'd really, really appreciate if she could keep her multiple personalities straight for once.

"People change." She waved the bartender back over and, just like I had, undid a button on her blouse without an ounce of shame. "Two rum n' cokes, and I'm payin'."

"It's illegal to kill someone," I said like I was trying to explain a basic Sunday school story to a toddler. "You can't do that, you'll get the chair, are you crazy? Just ask my brother."

(Was I condemning her, or my own half-baked plan to put a blade through Graham?)

"So is rape." She gave me a smile that was all bared teeth. "Allegedly. Dunno how much luck I'd have in front of a judge, once the accuser's character becomes part of the equation."

"Angela, I didn't mean—" I wasn't quite sure what I was apologizing for, but considering the alcohol she was buying for me, I felt guilty enough to do it anyway.

"It's okay." She'd land herself back in the hospital, if she drank any more at this pace, but I understood the impulse. "Not like I figured it out myself 'til now. He was manipulative as fuck. Always told me he loved me, he wouldn't hurt me, he 'respected my boundaries'... what a load of _shit_. He knew what he was doin', givin' money to my stepdaddy the whole time."

I'd only been seven when Jerry Lee Lewis had married Myra Brown, a girl who'd believed in Santa Claus as she walked down the aisle, but I still remembered the way Mom's lip had curled after the story broke, the resounding death of his career with the scandal... the way Joe had led Angela up the stairs, his palm pressed against the small of her back like he was corralling livestock. "Angel—"

She stared me down before I could get another word out. "You wanna nail Graham to the wall too? We can do a drive-by from here to Brooklyn."

I didn't want her to mention him, not here, like just the act of saying his name would summon him on over to a bar he'd never dream of entering. I thought about his hand around my throat, more than anything, the reason why I couldn't wear a scarf or zip my coat up all the way. I thought about him pushing me against the wall, and maybe he deserved to die, maybe he really fucking did, but he was a man and I was a woman and I knew full well how the world worked by now.

Angela really wasn't afraid of any boy on earth, though, that was the thing; she'd long since lost the ability to feel fear, and the madness lurking in her eyes made me want to grab my drink and move to the opposite end of the bar. She scared me and part of me hated her, but I just couldn't walk away.

"How else do you see this ending?" she asked me, in a harsh whisper now. "He's got a hit out on you, he'd kill me without even thinkin' twice... even if you skip town, your brother became a fucking Tiger just to try and protect you. You want to sleep with one eye open for the rest of your life?"

"Got no idea how you expect to get it done," I said, trying to keep it casual, like I talked about murder all the damn time. Maybe the men she'd grown up with had, what the hell, I wouldn't put much past the Ramirez brothers. "He's a hot target, he knows how to escape by now and he's damn good with a weapon. Luis tried to shoot him at point blank and he still got away."

"Who said we were gonna do it ourselves? Maybe I want to kill two birds with one stone."

* * *

He raped you. He raped you.

 _The thought followed me around like a stray dog as I skulked in the corner of the party, pounding another cup of punch, a shot of vodka Sylvia had placed in my hand, a can of still-frosty beer I'd found on the table— didn't go away even if kicked. I didn't want anyone to see me, not tonight, maybe not ever again— I imagined fading into the torn wallpaper in Wayne Jacob's basement, far from leering eyes, and flinched when any guy so much as walked in my direction. I felt painfully exposed in the low-cut blouse I'd borrowed from Sylvia, one my mama and I had fought over, one I should've listened to her about, and maybe men wouldn't look at me and think—_

 _He couldn't have done... that, it wasn't possible, period, I tried to tell myself. Rape happened in deserted alleyways, in parking lots at night, in war zones, everyone knew that. If I'd been raped, how was I still walking around on my own two feet? How was I still conscious, doing the same old shit I did every day, capable of thinking about anything else?_

 _How was I not dead?_

 _Another shot followed another and another. I knew what a hangover looked like intimately, had woken up early in the morning plenty of times to find my father bent in worship to the toilet, the only thing that had ever made his face pale— "don't tell your mama," he'd commanded me, his finger pressed up to his lips and vomit-stained chin, my vow more powerful than any prayer. I just didn't care anymore, though the pain that spasmed through my throat whenever I swallowed raised the memories right back up to the forefront of my mind._

 _"Would you lookit that," came a cold, condescending voice. I was drunker than I'd ever been; I had no idea how I was still upright at this point, my face flushed a burning red as I clutched at the grooves in the wall. "Jasmine's wasted. Just what I wanted tonight, a chance to use my babysittin' certs."_

 _"Heyyy, Dally," I said, and ended up stumbling into him, my palms up against his chest. "Fancy seein' you here."_

 _Maybe he'd drag me upstairs too. I wasn't blind, I'd seen the way he looked at me since I was thirteen or so, knew how he talked about women like they only existed for his pleasure— I didn't have enough context, then, to figure out what he was compensating for._

I don't care what happens to me anymore _— the thought slammed into me with the force of a freight train, and I couldn't shake it, not that I was trying very hard. Maybe he would do terrible things to me. Terrible things had already been done to me, what was left?_

 _"What the fuck are you doin' here?" He took hold of my shoulders and shoved me away from him. "You look a teensy bit too fun, if you know what I mean. Jesus, Mom and Dad would kill you if they caught you in a place like this."_

 _"Well, they're dead now, ain't they?" For some reason, I found that unfathomably funny, that they were too dead to stop me from doing shit; Dally slapped a hand over my mouth, before my laughter could attract anyone else's attention._

 _I'd never liked his eyes, a blue the color of the horizon at the very start of dawn, hard to read at the best of times; he stared me down with a seriousness uncharacteristic of him. "You better not come back here, even with Sylvia, you dig? Somethin' bad could happen to you."_

 _"You wanna go upstairs?" I asked him like it was an inevitability. "Get it over with?"_

 _He shook his head at me, as though I was a mental patient or something, but I didn't miss how his eyes darted down to my breasts bursting out of the tight top. "I'm takin' you home," he said, "home to Darry. You ain't right."_

 _I wasn't sure what I remembered more, that darting of his eyes or his grim escort down those icy streets, all the way back to the East side. Maybe he himself never figured out how to settle the duality._

* * *

I dreaded coming home again, after the scene I'd witnessed between Darry and Dallas; maybe I'd always dreaded coming home, since I was a little girl. The stench of whiskey crawled up my nostrils and stayed there, as I tried to make a beeline for my room, and activated some flashbulb memory stashed deep inside my brain. Had Dad lost his job again, been called a redskin at the post office, gotten into another nasty, spiteful argument with Uncle Gene?

No, Dad went straight for the slot machines whenever he fought with Uncle Gene, anyway. It was Soda chugging it like a bottle of ice water, Steve patting him mechanically on the shoulder. "What happened?" I demanded. "Did you hear somethin' about Ponyboy? The pigs catch him?"

"Nah," Steve said with a snort, "it ain't so bad as that. The fucking cooze cheated on him, is all."

"I _told_ you not to call her that," Soda snapped, looking up at him with bloodshot eyes. "Goddammit, don't you call my broad nothin'."

"Your broad? Pull your head outta the sand, man, she's half the neighborhood's broad." Steve turned to me. "That dirty, cheap lil' slut's knocked up with some other guy's baby and probably gonna pass down VD to it, is that better?"

"I still would've married her." Soda's voice cracked like a bottle under somebody's foot. "Even if it ain't mine, that's what I told her old man, but he hit the roof—"

"What'd you expect, buddy, he'd be happy about Slutty Sandy gettin' hitched to some sixteen-year old kid?"

"Seventeen," Soda said like it made any difference. "I'm gonna be seventeen in a couple weeks."

"Soda, you can't _marry_ her," I sputtered, "are you crazy? If she oughta be marryin' anybody, it's that kid's actual daddy, not whatever poor sap wants to take the fall for it."

"See," Steve jerked his thumb at me, "she's makin' more sense than you, and she's datin' Dallas, for Chrissakes. Your own damn baby sister."

"Well, she ain't marryin' him— her parents are sendin' her down to Florida," Soda said before I could bother to correct Steve's assumption. "To live with her grandma and have the baby. It ain't right, we were _gonna_ get hitched, we even had the names picked out—"

Steve leaned over to tilt the bottle further down his throat; Soda didn't try to cringe away from it, but sipped like a dying man in the desert around Mescalero. "Man, seriously, she was some high school fling you were fucking," he said with all the tact of a truck barreling down the highway. "Is all. She ain't worth shit— c'mon, you got broads shovin' their panties in your pockets wherever you go, you'll find another one with _natural blonde hair_ soon enough."

"I knew," I said miserably, my own lips loosened by the drinks I'd had with Angela earlier. "At one of Evie's parties... I saw her grindin' on this guy Dom. I think he's the daddy. Sylvia tried to tell you, you wouldn't listen to her—"

" _What_? Why the hell didn't _you_ tell me?"

"I saw her with him too," Steve said bluntly. "Dom, that dark, shifty-lookin' kid?" I nodded. "She told me he came onto her, she wanted him to leave her alone, but I dunno. I never seen a broad get so interested watchin' some guy hasslin' her walk across the room."

"So you two both just let—"

"Would you have believed us?" I asked. "We got the picture, Pepsi-Cola, you wouldn't listen to Sylvia when she told you point-blank—"

"Sylvia's been sleepin' around with half the town behind Dally's back!" Soda finally exploded, the alcohol lighting the already-short fuse of his temper. "For Chrissakes, she'll say anything to get even with whatever broad's pissed her off that night, why would I have believed her? You two, that's a whole different fucking story!"

Steve pressed him back into his chair with a hard hand to the collarbone, before he could get up. "Buddy, pretty blonde girl like her, you sure you wasn't tryin' to find a substitute for your mama there?"

Soda gaped at him— to my knowledge, these were the harshest words the two of them had exchanged since Steve had called Darry 'all brawn and no brains' and Darry had shattered his jaw. "You're lucky we're friends, man, you're real lucky. 'Cause otherwise, I might just have to clean your clock."

"I ain't sayin' nothin' to hurt you," Steve said with his hands up like he was facing a cop, "shit, you know all about how mine walked out, don't you? But goddamn, your mama dies, you get real serious with Sandy all of a sudden, chick who looks just like her, start talkin' about marriage and two point five kids and a white picket fence... it don't take no _qualified professional_ to tell something's up. You'd never even had a girlfriend longer than two weeks before."

"Okay, Sigmund Freud—" I was impressed Soda even knew who that was— "great analysis you got there, 'cept I didn't even _like_ my mama. Sandy was nothin' like her, she wasn't always criticizin' me and tellin' me what I was doin' wrong, 'else you really think I'd be tryna give her my last name?"

I'd never heard Soda state it so bluntly before, his antipathy towards our mother, the years of passive-aggressive snipes and comparisons to our father that had ground him further and further down. "And you, were you just gonna let me put Mom's ring on her finger, not say one goddamn word?"

"Don't we have bigger problems right now?" I retorted meanly, though I couldn't say his pathetic form didn't rouse some pity in me. "Don't _you_ have bigger problems right now?"

Yeah, that was a cheap shot, when if I'd sat at home in the convent Darry had wanted for me, he probably never would've gotten jumped in at all, but I wasn't above using it. Maybe I would've even told him the latest mess Angela was trying to rope him into, some last-ditch attempt at saving him, but there was a sharp, persistent knock at the front door and all those thoughts flew straight out of my head.

* * *

"What the _hell_ is goin' on here?" Rose demanded the second she'd stumbled past our God Bless This Home welcome mat; I struggled to remember if she'd ever been inside since the first time I'd met her. "Leave y'all alone for five minutes, this entire house becomes somethin' out of a James Bond movie, I swear."

Soda, Steve, and I simultaneously exchanged a glance that required no words; we'd all grown up with an alcoholic parent, we didn't have to spell it out to each other. (Nobody wanted to point out the irony of two out of three of us already being lit ourselves, and the third one sneaking surreptitious nips from the bottle Soda had left unaccompanied.) "Remind me what you do all day again, when you ain't comin' onto the scene uninvited?" Soda ventured; he could charm the panties off of a lot of women, but he'd never turned an ounce of that onto Rose. Maybe even he could recognize a lost cause when he saw one.

"Secretary work, go shoppin', argue with my mother-in-law," she shot back just as quickly. "I need to talk to Darry."

"Well, he ain't in," I said with more nerve than I would've had talking to her on my own. "We got a lot goin' on right now, so—"

"I can read a _newspaper_ , Jasmine Eugenia." I bristled at the use of my middle name; only my mama had gotten to call me that, and I supposed I couldn't stop Darry from pulling it out. "Ponyboy's friend killed a man? They're on the run for _murder_? How fucking bad is your brother at parenting?"

... Pretty bad, considering the slap heard 'round the world that had landed him in this situation, but well, we weren't about to say that out loud. "The hell do you even care 'bout him?" Soda asked with unabashed hostility. "You ever even spoken two sentences to him before?"

"Because I got y'all's social worker callin' me up, askin' me why your brother was present at a homicide and then vanished off the face of the earth," she said. "She wants to remove— well, you, Sodapop. I suppose Ponyboy too, if he doesn't get charged."

"So what, auntie, you fixin' to take me home with you too?"

"No." Her hair, usually carefully arranged, was disheveled and uncombed, smears of mascara gathered under her eyes like angry storm clouds— she stumbled forward, trying to reach for me, but I shrank away. "Just Jasmine. I'm takin' _her_ home with me, where she should've been from the beginning."

"She's not goin' anywhere with you— _look_ at you, you're piss drunk." Soda slammed the bottle back down on the table; irony had never been his strong suit. "Git on outta here."

"Jasmine, baby," she said, too syrupy to be believable; more than anything I wished Steve and Soda weren't here. I knew how to handle her, when she was a little (or more than a little) soused, but I sure didn't want them to know that I knew that... if that made any sense. "Honey, I love you, I'm just doin' what's best for you. Just go get a bag packed and you'll be safe."

"You oughta go home— by yourself," I said like a zookeeper trying to corral a dangerous animal. "I can't leave, I gotta be here for my brothers."

She slapped me, but before I could register the pain erupting over my already-bruised cheekbone, Steve had near picked her up and started shoving her back towards the door— I'd never much liked him, and he'd never much liked me, but sheer gang loyalty trumped that right now. "After everything... after all the shit I've done for you, you're just gonna throw it back in my face?" She'd started crying, fake, manipulative tears I'd seen well up in Angela's eyes a million times; all I felt was a tired contempt. "You're just gonna abandon me now?"

"Go take a cold shower, honey, you'll feel better in the morning." Steve whistled nervously, after he'd bodily pushed her out and slammed the door behind her— she pummeled it with her fists a few times, then stalked off down the driveway. "Damn, at least crazy Uncle Gene always brings good kush 'round, huh?"

Well. No wonder she was popping a cornucopia of pharmaceuticals to function in the morning.

"She slap you around?" Soda asked, clutching fistfuls of the tablecloth.

"No, it ain't nothin'," I said; I didn't want to go into the night I got arrested and had to have her bail me out, not with Steve there listening in. "She's just drunk, she don't know what she's doin'. I'm more worried 'bout you."

"It'll be fine," he said, sounding more like he was convincing himself than convincing me. "Shit, even if the state takes me away, I'm seventeen, I'm practically a grown man— I don't even go to school no more. Dally's supposed to be stuck in some boys' home with bars on the windows too, and he just lives wherever he can. I'll be fine."

Whether or not _I_ would be fine, remained to be seen.

* * *

"We should talk."

Sylvia was sitting on my bed, her legs crossed at the ankle, the laces on one of her boots untied and dangling loose. I didn't know who'd let her in and I didn't really care— I just wanted her out.

"I'm not in the mood," I said sharply, struck by the desire to put my fist through the drywall. I needed this right now like I needed a hole in the head. "For another fight about Dally— I don't care anymore, okay? We broke up, you can do whatever you want with him, he's all yours. I'm too busy with Ponyboy to worry about that shit."

"Johnny's out there too, he's the one who drove the knife in—"

"Yeah, the two really compare, don't they? Your boyfriend of a month you were messin' around on, and my brother."

"You remember the drive home from your parents' funeral?" she asked so quietly, I had to strain to hear it, instead of keeping the fight going. "When we were holdin' each other and cryin' in the backseat?"

How could I ever forget? I stumbled backwards, feeling more slapped and disoriented than I had when Rose's hand had collided with my cheek— I didn't want her in my house, but she was in all of my memories, embedded somewhere beyond conscious thought. I couldn't get her out, no matter how hard I tried.

"Jas... Jasmine, I didn't know." She sounded so utterly broken and bereft, she mesmerized me, forcing me to really consider what she was saying for the first time in months. "I wouldn't have— I didn't know."

She clasped my hand, her long fingers curling up in mine, and my face twisted up with misery, tears threatening to spill out— I turned my head away so she wouldn't see, but she knew me better than that, always had. "Jas, it's okay," she said, trying to pull me into her arms. "If my brother was on the lam for murder, glory—"

"Nate couldn't murder a slug, who are you tryna kid." I steadied my ragged breathing, scrubbed a hand across my eyes before more than a couple of tears could fall. "It's not Ponyboy, Syl, I'm in trouble... Soda's in a lot of trouble."


	31. Policy of Truth

There's some... underage, substance-fueled experimentation going on here that was encouraged by a predator, and the youth/consent of everyone involved is a little... iffy. I mean, if you made it through the child prostitution this should be a breeze, but if you want to give it a miss it's in italics.

* * *

"She wants Soda to kill the head of the _Kings_?"

"Yeah." I twirled a loose curl around my finger, the end in need of a trim; I wore my hair the same way Angela did, all over the place. "He used to be her pimp, she wants to take him out now, but she knows she probably can't do it herself... so she figured she'd get Soda for a hired gun."

"Jas..." Her long, acrylic fingernails dug into my arm, hard enough that the sting distracted me from my deliberation; when she pulled away, she left half-moon shaped welts. "Jas, God, that girl's not right in the head, you can't be serious about tellin' him." Funny, from the girl who'd first spilled the story about Sandy and Dom like she was the National Enquirer. "You can't seriously think Soda could kill someone. He doesn't know the first thing about it."

"This ain't some— fucking hell, he ain't in some joke of a gang like Darry's no more, or like Brumly, keyin' cars and sellin' grass on the weekends and fightin' with rich boys from school." I lit up a weed right there in my bedroom, though Darry would give me an earful the next time he came in and smelled it— _this place reeks like a cheap motel, and I ain't just talking 'bout the guys you bring home. "_ You don't get out of the Tigers unless you die or they beat you to death— or unless you give them somethin' they really, really want. Killin' the leader of their worst enemy, that might just do it."

"Is that what your daddy did? Killed someone?"

"No." I felt like my lungs had been deflated with a bicycle pump. "He and Luis Ramirez, they were mixed up in a big smack bust— Luis had a lot of priors, he was gonna do serious time, so my daddy took the charge for him. That's why they let him walk, after he got out."

We fell silent then, but our shoulders were still touching; I couldn't bring myself to scoot away from the comforting weight, or to stop myself from asking a question I'd been churning over for a while now, though I hadn't expected her to answer honestly if I'd approached her before. "Nate's daddy... did he..."

"No, he ain't like that, he didn't hold me down or nothin'— he ain't got the balls." Her tones were short and clipped. "Just cornered me in the stairwell one time I was over there, started kissin' on me a little... said he'd heard all about my reputation, that I'd hit it with anything that moves... said I could call him Daddy upstairs if I wanted. He's lucky Nate wasn't there, he would've put his head through the wall."

Nate was real protective of her, always had been. I was surprised he hadn't put my head through the wall when I'd showed up and bragged about stealing Dallas.

"He was bad news from the jump, shit." She connected her fingers over her ribcage, inhaled deeply to steady herself. "I mean, _Jesus_ , how old were we when we started hangin' around his place and gettin' loaded with him and Nate, twelve? Thirteen? What kind of grown-ass man wants some junior high girls gigglin' over wine coolers in his living room?"

"A perv."

"He always liked you. Not like that—" she hurriedly added, catching sight of my horrified expression, "I don't think so. But he wanted Nate to get together with you, for sure. Don't you remember... you know?"

 _If my parents had known where I really was, they never would've allowed it, not in a million years— but Sylvia's mama was too busy entertaining her third husband to supervise a sleepover, and she'd never had a problem with shooing us all over to Nate's daddy's house. Mom had been raised upper-class, and though her husband was an ex-con and there was a leaky hole in our ceiling that couldn't ever stay patched, it didn't take a genius to figure out that she considered Sylvia's family trash. And Dad... Dad would've gone down there with a sawed-off shotgun, if he'd soused out what we'd be getting up to that night._

 _I'd long since had too much, fallen onto a mattress on the floor to try to sleep it off. He lay down beside me, his breath a mixture of caramel cowtails and the screwdrivers he'd downed; I rolled over to face him, my eyes feeling like they were about to burst out of my head. "Nate?" The whole world floated around me, pinwheels of color without shape._

 _He slipped my hand down his pants and I giggled as what I grasped jumped; when he looked at me, his eyes seemed even more dazed and disoriented than mine, the blown pupils completely overtaking the blue of the iris. "What are you doin'?" I asked on the back of another giggle. Maybe he did like me, maybe he even wanted to go all the way with me, do the thing I'd whispered about after reading the graffiti on the walls of the girls' locker room. I ignored the sharp stab in my stomach at the thought of just what that might entail._

 _It didn't go that far, though, he didn't tug my shorts down or flip my shirt up— he shrugged himself out of my grip and stumbled over to the window, threw it open to send a rush of freezing air into the room. He tried to light a cigarette and cussed as he burned himself with the match, his hands shaking too much to steadily connect it to the tip of the weed. I sobered up enough for one solitary thought to enter my head— my mama wouldn't be very happy about this._

 _"Get outta here." His voice was harder than I'd ever heard it, hoarse from the smoke he was inhaling. "I don't care what you tell your friends, tell them what you want, but don't come hang 'round here with Sylvia anymore."_

 _"Why not?" Tears stung my eyes; I remembered the jibes I'd heard my whole life, about how I was just a ugly squaw, how my dark coloring separated me from everyone else. "I thought you wanted—"_

 _"Well, I don't." He wasn't at the age where being sensitive towards girls' feelings was high on his list of concerns. "Just get lost, I'm serious. You're too young for this shit."_

"I shouldn't have said that to you." She'd never been good at making apologies, not even when we were little kids and the teacher tried to get her to say sorry for pulling hair or slapping some girl's face, but she was trying her best. "And it didn't mean anything with Dally, he was just there and—"

"I didn't mean nothin' with Dally either," I said by ways of apologizing, without having to say out loud that I accepted hers. "God, he's a prick. Probably would've strung us both along at once if I hadn't told him to set you straight."

"He's pretty good with his tongue, though, admit it, and I ain't just talkin' about his cussin' habit—" When she nudged me, I genuinely smiled for the first time since Ponyboy had disappeared. "Looks like you traded up, though, you got the whole Shepard clan wrapped around your little finger now. Curly wasn't enough for you?"

"Awh, I ain't got shit goin' on with the rest of them, honest—" A cold shudder ran down my spine at the thought of Luis or Alberto coming on to me again, and Tim had made his feelings more than clear. "Guess I'm Curly's girl now—" Though I still wore Dallas's ring around my neck like some kind of desperate talisman, knew deep inside that if he propositioned me again, I might just accept. There was a gravitational pull between the two of us, one I couldn't so easily escape.

"I dunno what's gonna happen with Johnny... I don't wanna call him _naive_ , exactly, but he's like a new penny sometimes. He was goin' on seventeen and still a virgin when I got with him, hot damn." Her grin fossilized on her face, a messed-up rictus. "Guess that'll be a nice memory for him to take to the chair."

" _Sylvia—_ " We'd fallen back into our roles from childhood, her shooting her mouth off with a sidelong glance, making sure I was impressed, me scandalized but hanging off her every word. I'd forgotten how shameless I used to consider her.

"Don't tell him," she said sharply, some of her old condescension permeating her tone, "don't even think about it. It ain't so big a deal to be in a gang, even an outfit like the Tigers... what else did you think he was gonna do with his life, just work at a gas station forever?"

"There's more options than bein' a career criminal or scrubbin' grease at the DX—"

"Not for a tenth grade dropout, there ain't, not here, not in this neighborhood— 'less you count bein' cannon fodder." She gave me a hard pat on the shoulder. "Angela's got enough of her own brothers, don't she? Let them handle it. Think she could use a reality check before we have another murder trial in the family."

She was jealous, it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure it out, but the way she said 'the family', tears brimming in her eyes, stopped me from saying anything.

* * *

I wasn't kidding about Curly being a closet romantic— I wouldn't be surprised if he had some Mills & Boon novels stashed under his bed like Tim kept Playboys. Dallas's idea of a date was him, me, and a Doors record playing while we went at it, but Curly thought he ought to take me out, even if his idea of it was smoking a stolen joint in Tulsa's shadiest public park, near the corner where the hippies kept their buses. I wanted to appreciate it more than I actually did.

"That one looks like a coyote," I said, flat on my back and staring at the clouds, dead grass scratching against the exposed skin where my blouse had ridden up. Pot always made me say the dumbest shit. "My daddy... he taught my brothers how to shoot them from off the porch. Not me, though."

"My daddy never did nothin' with me neither— I mean, whatever," Curly said as he squinted up at said cloud, giving my delectable food for thought all the consideration it deserved. The wind ruffled his hair, making him look younger than when it was slicked-down with copious amounts of Brylcreem and grease, before he burst out with the news he must've been itching to share for hours now. "Tíos are givin' me a job. A big one."

"You?" I asked incredulously; his eyes were lit up like a Christmas tree, though, he wasn't kidding. "Not with Tim?"

Trust me, Curly ain't no Dallas Winston, and he wasn't even back then. I wouldn't have trusted him to pull off a B&E into a blind old lady's house without backup.

"Yeah, by myself. They don't trust him so much, not anymore." His leg bounced up and down, like Soda's did— _don't think about Soda_. "I'm s'pposed to go into a liquor store in King territory, stick the place up, empty the register, you know. Might grab a few bottles on my way out."

"Be careful," I said, and stood up to say it, brushing grass off my skirt and checking to see if it had stained. "The fuzz catch you casin' the joint, that ain't gonna be no easy sentence, not with your priors."

Like I had any room to be lecturing a Shepard on the dangers of the fuzz... in all honesty, I was more worried about Joe or his trusted lieutenants catching up with him, and that thought made me angrily suck on the end of the joint, glistening it with my saliva.

"You gonna miss me? If I go inside?"

"Maybe," I said, gracing him with a tiny sliver of a smile.

He studied me more carefully than he'd ever studied a textbook. "You gonna wait for me?"

"Probably not." My smile got bigger, but it still felt brittle, about to crumble. "So you better pull it off, hotshot."

He growled low in his throat and reached for me, kissing me hard and shoving a hand down the waistband of my jeans. Everything just felt like nothing when I was loaded; I arched into his touch, and the joint fell out of my grip, smoldering on the ground. "Guess we oughta make this count, then."

I stifled a laugh behind his lips as he pressed me flat against the chainlink fence and finished what he'd started. Curly was no Tim, no matter how much he pretended, he was the kind of boy I could've broken in half if I'd put my mind to it. Despite all that, I still liked him.

* * *

Back in Darry's wilder days, he and _Timmy_ Shepard told me about this Mexican dive bar they used to hang around, where the parties bled into fights bled into more parties and the bartender never bothered to check ID's— it was the Ramirez brothers' version of paradise, the only kind they could ever enter, and one they owned a share of. Fortunately, while Luis might've become legal since he'd moved out of his mama's house, his taste for cheap tequila and cheaper company hadn't gone anywhere.

"Fancy seein' you out here," he said once he caught sight of me, his upper lip curled high enough to reveal his stained gum. " _Compa_ ," he shouted across the table at a guy in a dingy cowboy hat, "if you clear me out, I'm gonna be sittin' by your pillow tonight with a Glock."

" _No es mi culpa que no puedas jugar digno de mierda,_ " he shouted back; if Luis played the hand fanned out in front of him, he was going to lose, and hard. No wonder Curly's kitchen table poker skills were so bad.

"I need to talk to you."

He tipped his knee enough to destabilize the girl perched on one of his thighs; with an indignant huff, she teetered back over to the bar, her ass cheeks hanging right out of her shorts. "I fold," he said, slamming the cards down with imperious finality, "don't think I ain't gonna be back, though." He stood up and walked away a few paces with me, towards a more sparsely-populated part of the room. "Honey, that's a fifty dollar pot, this better be important," he said, faintly amused, "but I guess I should thank you for savin' my ass back there."

Instead of making a plea for help, what came out of my big mouth was: "you really sendin' Curly out on his own?"

He raised one eyebrow at me; the gesture might as well have been a warning shot. "And what about it?" He flicked his engraved silver lighter— it had a Bible verse on it, but I couldn't get close enough to tell which one, he dropped it back in his pocket too fast. "Kid's never gonna learn his ass from his elbow unless he gets out in the field, and I trust him more than Timmy lately— not that I need to explain myself to you."

"I don't like what you're doin' with him," I dared to keep arguing— Luis wasn't as volatile as Alberto, he probably wouldn't take a swing at me, not in the middle of such a crowded place. "He's a sittin' duck, out in King territory—"

"I don't like what _you're_ doin' with him, Miss Thing," he said, his disapproval like a schoolteacher's as he frowned at me. "We both know you ain't really interested in him, hell, you're just tryna shack up with the biggest dealer on the block. But that stupid little motherfucker's in love with you, and it's gonna cost him."

"What do you know about love? You don't even pay for your own damn kids."

"You think you're so fucking wise, don't you, parrotin' whatever shit Timmy or someone else told you— your mama was playin' the field too, back in the day, but she had enough sense not to be so obvious about it." The flame from the tip of the cigarette made shadows play on his face, more menacing than usual. "Why are you really here?"

This conversation hadn't gotten off to the start I'd wanted, not at all, especially since I had precious little leverage to work with in the first place. "I need you to do me a favor— I need to get Soda out, before he ends up doin' shit he can't take back."

"Didn't Frannie ever tell you not to make deals with gangsters?" Ash fell onto my blouse like snowflakes when he flicked his cigarette. "You get what you wanted from Alberto? Your brother in the Tigers in exchange for some half-assed security detail?"

"What do you care, you ended up with hundreds in Tiger money and heaters—"

He gave me a thin, piercing smile. "You really think if Eli and Joe weren't already gunnin' for each other since juvie, you haulin' ass down to his turf and makin' that sad face you wear so well would've convinced him to hand over _hundreds_? Alberto thought it was funny. He was fucking with you."

"Go to hell."

"I feel _sorry_ for you, honey, you're too stupid to live." The words slammed into me with the force of a subway train, but I couldn't contradict him, couldn't get enough air inside my lungs. "Some guy with a face tattoo and a record Al Capone would cringe at tells you to jump, you ask how high, and you let him use you to do his dirty work. Now you're in over your head and you're tryna score another deal to make up for the last one." He took my chin between his thumb and index finger, tipped it up. "Back in my day, broads sat by the pool and looked pretty. It worked out a lot better for them."

"You _owe_ me." It came out as more of a plea than a demand. "I know what my daddy did for you, don't you owe his kids somethin' in return?"

He grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked, just barely hard enough to hurt, but enough that I knew he could do it much harder if he wanted to— then he let go and laughed at me. "I'll give you a fifty and a pistol to put him on a bus to Muskogee, if you blow me, how 'bout. One last boon to the old man."

I started to fumble with his fly, and he swatted my hands away with another laugh, but it was more pitying than anything else. "I told you, little girl... too stupid to live. It's gonna cost you soon enough." He stepped away from me, his heel circling the floor before he could leave altogether. "And tell your brother if he wants somethin' from me, he oughta have the balls to ask me himself."

But he wouldn't ever, would he, wasn't that the trouble? Too stubborn and proud to accept help even if he tried. I stood there, frozen in place like my shoes had been nailed to the floor, and watched my last hope stumble into the doorframe as he walked out.

"That was harsh."

In hindsight, retracing my steps and seeing where I'd fucked it all up, nothing stands out to me about him, his appearance and mannerisms indistinguishable from any other hood — I never even learned his name. "You know that guy?" he asked, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his grimy jeans.

"Wish I didn't." I was already looking past him, wondering if I'd accomplish anything by tailing Luis, though I doubted I could make myself even more pathetic in his eyes.

"You want me to shoot you up?" he asked like he was offering me a glass of milk. "Take your mind off it?"

I should've been more skeptical; Angela had whored herself out for heroin, it wasn't the sort of thing you just handed out to random girls off the street. But I'd been to plenty of parties run by the bigger outfits where drugs flowed as easy as water, they had more than they knew what to do with— what would it hurt, a couple hours spent in a cotton-mouthed haze? "Yeah, okay," my voice sounded strangely high-pitched to my own ears as I rolled my sleeve up. "Go ahead."

He had discovered the secret weakness burning inside of me, a few persistent embers at the bottom of the campfire. "Just a little bit now," he said, noticing my hesitation even as the tourniquet dug into the delicate skin of my bicep, like there was any such thing as a 'little bit' of smack. "Shhh." He felt up and down my arm for the bump of the vein; I didn't remember Angela having been so careful. "Shh," though I didn't realize I was making noise.

The relief came instantaneous and sudden with the prick of the needle, like the sun was rising inside of me, like I was finally one with God. "I love it," I cooed, my tongue too big for the inside of my mouth, "I love it, I love it—" Then my head was full of static, the room far too terribly hot and bile rising up my throat, everything spinning around and around and around—

(They were ready for me, hands out to catch me before my skull split open against the concrete floor, blood and bone and brain splattering everywhere. I wasn't allowed to die, not yet.)

* * *

My head throbbed as consciousness washed over me like a bucket of ice water, I tasted dirty copper in my mouth— I'd been pistol-whipped, maybe more than once, bruising setting into my cheekbones and upper jaw. "What the fuck?" I muttered, feeling like I was caught in a bad dream, until I saw the pinprick in the crook of my elbow and realized that I'd miscalculated, more terribly than I ever could've imagined.

A flashlight shone in my face, blinding me. "Hey, sweetheart," Joe said, and I stared into the vacuum of his eyes, my vision as unsteady as a newborn's. "Wondered when we'd meet up again."


	32. Exterminate Her

Uh... this is probably the darkest chapter so far, I'm warning everyone ahead of time. Big trigger warning on the first section.

* * *

I was in a warehouse, I could suss out that much— when I inhaled, damp and mold flooded my lungs, the floorboards spongy and rotting under my hands. Not the House of the Rising Sun, then, Joe never would've let it or any of his other acquisitions fall into such disrepair. "What'd you give me?" I croaked, of all things to ask, my stomach feeling like it was being squeezed by a giant fist. "That wasn't just smack."

"Pure pharmaceuticals, don't worry, honey, you ain't gonna get no hep C." Joe kept the flashlight trained right at my eye level, examining my pupils with a clinical gaze; he clenched a gun in the other hand, his knuckles white around the handle. "I didn't expect it'd be so easy, though, I'll admit it. You just stuck your arm right out, huh?"

His voice was like a thousand needles stabbing into me, all over my skin, no escape— my vision blurred from fear, the stupid, helpless fear of an animal caught in a trap. I was tempted to scream, but I knew without trying that the sound would go no further than those four walls. "What the hell do you want from me?"

He was flanked by two other guys, the one that had shot me up, another I didn't recognize; he smiled at me like a shark, all sharp teeth and bloodlust, circled me and waited for the best opportunity to strike. "Now, where your manners at? Maybe I just wanted to meet the broad who made Luis Ramirez squat by my bed with a heater and try to blow my head off, one fine mornin'."

"All I told him was the truth about you."

"What's she been sayin' now, that I held her down, forced myself on her? That was all her stepdaddy, I never made her do nothin'— they call that _projection_ , in psychology." He snorted, like this was the first time he'd ever evaluated his own morals. "She's just a whore, plain and simple, same as the million others I got spreadin' their legs for smack. Ain't my fault she got her lil' feelings hurt."

"She's _fourteen_ , you sick fuck." Anger overrode my good sense, whatever was left of it. "She was twelve when you first met her."

"You know the real funny thing?" His hand hovered over my bicep, a mockery of intimacy. "If it weren't for her, I never would've figured out you were the one who told Luis, couldn't have guessed. She sold you up the river to save herself, and here you are, actin' like you're defendin' the Virgin Mary's honor."

"Well, yeah, when you was stranglin' the life outta her—"

He crouched closer to my face. "I've known her a hell of a lot longer than you have. Lemme tell you this much about her— if she was sent back in time, she'd do it all over again. Only thing the Ramirezes ever care about is their own skins, the broads included."

"You didn't bring me here to give me tips about my future gang dealings," I said, though his words had unsettled me more than I wanted to admit, seeping inside of me like a poisonous gas. "Or to talk about Angela's character flaws."

"Ain't you a sharp one," he said, "I figured as much when we first met, figured you'd give those Ramirez boys a run for their money. You're right, I don't care about Angela any more than I care about every other whore I got." He sucked his teeth at me with a loud pop. "Sure do care 'bout what her uncles got planned for my turf, though, and that's what you're here for, doll."

"You think I'm part of their inner circle? They share all their plans with me, ask for my approval 'fore they go ahead?" As Luis had made perfectly clear, _kinder, küche, kirche_ wasn't just a slogan to them, but a way of life.

"Your daddy used to run with their crew, you sold drugs with Angela, heard through the grapevine you've had a little love affair goin' on with Curly... yeah, maybe you _do_ know," he said with eerie calm. "They've got somethin' planned for tonight in our territory, a heist, a big one. I'm gonna need the details."

"You ain't gettin' none."

"Maybe I haven't made myself clear enough." He angled my chin up with the pistol, forcing me to look him in the eye. "I tried playin' nice, but you just didn't wanna cooperate, so now we gotta do this the hard way."

"Well, you're already gonna kill me, ain't you?" Time ceased to exist anymore— it was just the two of us, suspended in space, the cold, greasy metal pressed into my skin the only thing anchoring me to reality. "I wouldn't tell you shit even if I knew it."

"You're Dallas Winston's girl, _ain't you_?" He grasped at the class ring around my neck, yanked at the chain until the weak clasp broke and it clattered against the floorboards. "Wouldn't it be nice to leave him a little message, sweetheart, 'bout who he associates with?" His fingers hooked around the belt loop on my jeans. "Maybe we could all take turns."

He had them well-trained, his guard dogs, they hadn't done anything but look menacing the whole time. (I noticed, inexplicably, that both were shorter than him.) Now the one who'd shot me up was palming his length staring at me, the fabric at the front of his pants tented, and I started slipping back into the shimmery, dreamy numbness that made me wonder if I was awake or asleep. _Someone else raped me, before_ , I wanted to say, still not quite believing this was real, _wait, slow down, hold up, you can't—_

He'd never just meant to kill me. That wasn't nearly enough. And this time there was no Luis in the alleyway with leftover obligations to my father— the only gun here was trained at me.

I hadn't begged Graham, I hadn't cried or screamed, and I wouldn't now, snapped back into reality as Joe shoved his hand down my pants— I struck out at him, flailing, but my reflexes were still slow and leaden from the injection, and my palms might as well have been rabbit paws for all the damage my barrage of slaps did to him. "Stop it," he said with an amused chuckle, and dug two fingers into my windpipe— I sank into his sea, helpless to do anything but count every breath as it rose and fell. It didn't take him long to slip my jeans down my thighs, fumble with the teeth of his own zipper, start to position himself on top of me. "Relax, you might even enjoy it." He pinched my cheek before smothering me with a sloppy, deep kiss and pawing at the buttons of my blouse, pulling it off my shoulders. "I'm pretty good— Angela always said so."

He'd dropped the gun on the floor, a couple of inches away from him. I saw it in my peripheral vision. Nobody picked it up. I—

* * *

When I was a kid, summer of '57, to be precise, I wanted a dog more than anything in the world. Blame it on watching too many episodes of _Lassie_.

"Where'd you find the money to feed one with, baby girl?" Daddy said with his rough bark of a laugh, gently tugging at one of my braids. That depressed him so much, he didn't come back home for another three days.

"Ponyboy's your pet," Mama said, pushing us out the front door and crossing off another day on the calendar, until school started again and we were out of her hair. "You better make sure the older kids don't push him off the swings again, you hear me? He's just a baby."

So it's no surprise that when I found a stray hanging around the neighborhood one day, open sores around his neck where he'd broken free of a chain, it felt like Christmas, my birthday, and the fourth of July put together. He was friendly, too friendly as he wandered close to front porches and approached me with eagerness, too friendly as he curled himself into my arms and licked my face, his eyes gleaming a strange, unnatural green and foam gathering at the corners of his mouth. I should've known better, but I'd had a taste for broken things, even then.

My daddy took one look at my new best friend, grabbed his shotgun, and blew his brains out.

"I had to do it, honey," he said with a hand on my shuddering back as I bawled into my pillow. "He was rabid. He would've bitten you or your brothers— I seen it happen on the rez. Ain't nobody who deserves to die like that."

"You could've taken him to the vet if he was sick," I got out between heaving sobs, "you didn't have to _kill_ him." Like he would've shelled out for a vet. You're not so smart at seven.

"You can't be so sentimental, Jasmine, baby— what I did was a helluva lot more merciful than lettin' him choke to death on his own spit." His hand clamped down on my shoulder. "Sometimes animals are too far gone to get better. You gotta put a bullet in them, and that's the kindest thing."

* * *

After my daddy went inside, I got his gun out from the drawer and practiced shooting tin cans off the porch. He never took me hunting. I taught myself.

* * *

The version of this story I prefer to tell is the one where I get him right between his eyes.

But I didn't, my hands shook violently as I clenched the gun, raised it up and surveyed the room— my movements were jerky, unpracticed. It'd been a long time since I'd held one, only muscle memory guiding me. "Put it down," Joe said, all the smarmy condescension stripped from his voice. None of them were strapped, they hadn't thought they'd need much more than this ancient Glock to take me on. "Put it the _hell_ down, you don't know what you're doin' with that thing."

"I ain't one of your new recruits, trust me, I know what I'm doin'," I said with a high, hysterical laugh, and still with more confidence than I really felt. I swung it around wildly, not sure if I had the bullets to shoot them all, not sure if I had the guts to shoot any of them. "You scared? You scared of me now, motherfucker?"

One of them made to lunge for me, but Joe held up a hand, held him back. The air crackled with tension like the sky before a lightning storm, three grown men intimidated by a teenage girl with a heater sliding out of her sweaty palms; the muscles in my arms burned from the effort it took to keep it cocked, my finger molded to the trigger. "Angela tried this with a knife once, when she was real young," Joe finally said, the slight twitch of his lips the only sign of emotion on his face. "It didn't end so well for her."

The world exploded in the next few seconds, with a bang so loud I almost bit my tongue off. Recoil hard enough I stepped backwards, then forwards. Blood pouring out of the wound in his thigh. I'd missed, missed bad, missed my target entirely. Blood seeping through the rough denim of his jeans, onto the floor, smelling like iron in the sun, hot on my hands I was touching him, clawing at him. I didn't know a body could hold so much of it. He howled something without words, cussed, his friends— not his friends, his subordinates, my daddy had friends he had lackeys— pushed me aside, bent over him, and the door was unlocked and I ran and ran and ran going nowhere at all until I sensed blood in the back of my throat and when I stopped to throw up in the bushes it tasted like blood and blood was all I could see.

He shouldn't have taunted me with Angela, that was the trouble. He shouldn't have taunted me period.

* * *

I didn't know how I ended up bundled into a police car until I was in the backseat. Maybe it had something to do with me wandering the streets at night, the legs of my jeans dripping red, looking down at the flashing lights with a thousand-yard stare— and being at the edge of the East side that bordered the North, AKA hoods _and_ Mexicans, meant I was bound to collide with the fuzz sooner or later. I just wished I'd had the good sense not to struggle.

"You start actin' like a wild animal again, I'll put 'em right back on." Bad Cop snapped the handcuffs off my wrists and sat me down in a plastic chair, engulfed in fluorescent light— there were red marks on my skin where I'd fought against them, but they'd been locked in the front, and I was unharmed otherwise. It surprised me that they hadn't roughed me up more— Dallas always came out from 'interrogations' looking like he'd just been in the ring with Muhammad Ali, so I knew they didn't object to a little judicious police brutality. Maybe being female had endeared me to them. "Cat still got your tongue?"

I wasn't afraid of any kind of sentence for what I'd actually done— if Joe set foot in a police station, he'd be locked up for life and then some, and he would've sooner put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger than admitted a teenage girl had gotten the drop on him— but more of the charges they liked to lay on my kind, drunk and disorderly, solicitation, resisting arrest. I kept it zipped.

"Somethin' happened to you... clearly," Good Cop said, but I didn't trust the gentle smile he affected— anyone could smile with their mouth. The shock of ginger hair under his hat just kept him looking too ridiculous to ever take Bad Cop's place. "Did you get jumped, did someone attack you? Seems like half the city's on fire the past couple days, with them greasers and Socs or whatever it is goin' after each other..."

"If I'm supposed to be the victim of a crime here," I bit out unwisely, "why am I the one gettin' cuffed?"

"Jesus, the hell are you even wasting your time with this for?" Bad Cop scoffed like he was hacking a wad of tobacco out from the back of his throat. "Some Injun girl walkin' around at night, and you think she was _jumped_... your boyfriend slap you around, sweetheart, that what you don't wanna say? Catch you messin' around with another guy?"

"Dunno, she looks like she might be white—" Good Cop examined me like a phrenologist prodding lumps on a skull. "Mixed, maybe."

"Buddy, word of advice—" Bad Cop wormed around the side of his molar with a toothpick, and leaned against his desk, jostling the black phone perched close to the edge— "you try to get involved in every redskin domestic, you'll never get another moment's sleep again. Those people just don't know how to act. _Sweetheart_ , your daddy have too much to drink, he take a swing at you? Your stepdaddy?"

"Don't got either," I managed to say, my jaws on rusty hinges. "I live with my brother."

"Your fucking _brother_ , throw me a bone here, he the one who roughed you up?"

"Yeah, and he ripped her shirt and pants up too, huh."

"I told you, these people don't know how to act." The tip of his tongue darted ever-so-slightly past his lips. "We got this hot mess of a family on that side, the Cades, neighbors call us every other week— and what does Cade's old lady do but show up here and bawl that he didn't mean nothin', with blood still comin' out her nose. I don't put shit past them. Just let her walk."

"Honey," Good Cop tried again, "tell us what happened here. Did someone hurt you? We can't help you unless you give us somethin' to work with."

The thought was briefly tempting, confiding in the nice law enforcement officers— that I'd been kidnapped by a gang of thugs, held at gunpoint, threatened with murder and rape— but the only words my daddy had taught me to ever say to a cop left my warped mouth: "am I bein' charged?"

Bad Cop's eyes narrowed. "Should you be? Is that your blood?"

"If I'm bein' charged, I want a lawyer. I know my rights."

"Enough," Good Cop said, though he was definitely the junior one in this situation and I doubted he had the authority for that proclamation. "Enough, okay? Nobody's gettin' charged."

"Then get her outta here and quit scroungin' for the do-gooder of the year award. She obviously ain't interested in pressin' charges, and I ain't about to hit up the DA to press 'em for her."

"Shouldn't we... call her brother first? She looks like a minor, that's procedure."

"Have fun, if you're in the mood," Bad Cop snapped, "you'll be on the phone half the night tryna reach him, if she's even tellin' the truth." He picked a stapler off his desk, then slammed it back down, just for dramatic effect. "I'm goin' home, my shift's over, and not soon enough, Jesus fucking Christ."

"I'm sorry about him... he doesn't speak for all of us," Good Cop said in a low tone, and when my mouth fell open, it was almost to laugh. Like I believed that one cop could be better than another. "If somethin' happened to you... it ain't your fault. Take my number, here, you call me if he does it again."

I blinked at him and silently pocketed the slip of grimy paper he'd scrawled it on; I'd burn it once I got out of here, maybe roll it up like a joint and put it to good use. If this happened again, I wouldn't be lucky enough to cheat death twice. "Let me drive you home, at least," he said, stupid, kind sincerity radiating out from his face like sunbeams. "You shouldn't be out by yourself at night, your brother must be havin' conniptions. If it was my little sister..."

He reminded me of Two-Bit with that last sentence, which is the only reason why I agreed to get in the car with him.

* * *

Somehow I doubted he believed that I lived at Buck's roadhouse, where a party was already spilling out onto the lawn, out the windows, on the front porch, but he didn't give me any static about a real address. "At least tell me your name," he said as I pushed the car door open and swung my feet onto the concrete, prepared to leave him behind like a bad date. Shit, maybe he _did_ want a date with me. He wouldn't be the first cop to think East side girls were easy prey.

"Jasmine Curtis," I said, not seeing the point in lying, and watched the gears turn in his head as he looked at me again.

"Are you... I mean, it's a common name, you don't look nothin' like him... but you ain't related to that kid—"

"The one involved in that _awful_ stabbing? Never heard of him," I said, and slammed the door behind me. He didn't bother to get out.

I was swarmed the second I walked in, by a crowd eager for details about Ponyboy, pulling at my sleeve, getting up to my ear. Was it true that he and Johnny had a suicide pact? Were the two of them running around robbing every bank on this side of the Arkansas? Had Bob Sheldon really used his last, gurgling breath to vow he wanted his death avenged with the blood of every greaser in Tulsa? "I don't know nothin' more than y'all do, he ain't even picked up the phone to call," I said, shrugging them off and making a beeline for the makeshift bar Buck had assembled.

I stared up at him with dead eyes; he fumbled with the grimy dishrag he'd been wiping glasses with. "I need a fucking drink. Strongest you've got."

"Don't you think that's a little intense for you, Tinkerbell?" Buck scrutinized me, homing in on my battered appearance. "Where the hell's all that blood from, huh? You start underground boxin' for dames all of a sudden?"

"It ain't mine," I said, wondering if my ears would ever stop ringing from the blast of the shot. The adrenaline that had propelled me through the night was rapidly fading; I slumped forward in my seat, my eyelids weighed down with concrete.

He slammed the glass down hard enough to crack the bottom, his expression even less friendly than it had been when I rolled up. "I don't need no more trouble with the fuzz, not after what happened with your brother. And with you underage, too—"

"Give me a fucking drink, or I'll tell Dallas," I said tiredly.

"I'm billin' him for it," he said, but he poured out straight vodka into a tumbler all the same. "This good enough for ya, princess?"

"Fantastic," I said, slammed it all down in one gulp, and gestured for another one. I wondered which of my organs would fail first, my liver or my lungs, collapsing under the weight of my self-destruction. Maybe I wouldn't be around long enough to see the day either one gave up the ghost.

* * *

I'd had too much, I'd had too much, I'd had too much—

A montage of poor decisions flashed through my mind as I stumbled to the toilet and retched over and over again, acid turning into bitter bile turning into fruitless dry heaves, my stomach contorted in agonizing cramps. God, I was going to die. I was going to die here, choking on it, the vomit stinging as it splashed up to my nostrils—

I pulled myself up and looked at my face in the mirror. Trails of bile had spilled down my chin and onto my shirt, my cheeks were grotesquely bloated, my eyes shone bright red with broken blood vessels in the harsh light. I wanted to pull my fist back and smash it, but I was too weak to do anything except stumble forward, supporting my weight with the faucet.

 _There's nothing lower than this._

Dallas wrenched the door open and found me with my head in the toilet, miserably retching over and over again, though there was long since nothing left in my stomach to throw up. How much had I had? I'd lost track around six.

"Baby," he said with something I wanted to think was love, "the hell'd you do to yourself, huh?" He pulled me up, tore off a couple of sheets of toilet paper, wiped my mouth off with it. "Buck almost called an ambulance, glory, said you dyin' in here would bring down the property value."

"I'm sick," I said, pressing myself up against his chest, crying and gagging in equal measure. All the reasons I'd had to hate him, all the things we'd done to each other, receded into nothingness as I faced the only person willing to comfort me. "Dally, I'm real, real sick."

He reached up to stroke my hair— wasn't this how he'd always wanted me? Vulnerable, in need of his protection, spiralling out of control? "Yeah, I can see that much," he said, his arms tight enough to stop my uncontrollable trembling; he didn't seem to mind that I was drooling bile onto his shirt. "That ain't your blood, you'd've passed out by now. Who'd you shoot?"

He said it as a bad joke, but it wasn't a joke. None of this was funny. "Joe," I said, my voice muffled by the dirty cotton, the scent of cigarette smoke and BO.

"Fuck."

I trembled harder.

"It's you and me, babe," he said between kisses to the top of my head. I started to sob. "It's always gonna be you and me."


	33. Dirty Laundry

"He got hauled in?"

"Yeah," Angela said, her voice real crackly and nasal through the phone, "last night. It ain't lookin' pretty, with his priors, they ain't about to just slap him with a fine and community service... and God knows we don't have the money for no kind of good lawyer. Tim thinks he might be goin' in for a few months, maybe even six, if the judge wants to make an example outta him."

The first thought in my head— well, looked like I didn't have to tell Curly about what had happened with Dally, though nothing had really _happened_ , Dally wasn't the type of guy who'd try to stick his dick inside a sobbing, vomiting girl.

The second— thank God it was just the fuzz.

"My mama won't stop cryin'— then she went down to church to pray the rosary and do some more cryin'," Angela went on. "My stepdaddy wants to kick him out, make him go live with Grandma Shepard or somethin', but it'll be a cold one in hell 'fore Mom lets that happen... and Tim and tíos been hollerin' at each other all night. Fucking shitshow over here."

The worst of my puking and shaking and pounding head was over by the end of the night, Dallas a surprisingly patient nurse as he'd helped me to and from the bathroom, but I was still dangerously unsteady on my feet, my whole body feeling like it had dry mouth; I clutched the china cabinet in the hall, willing the world to stop tilting every time I closed my eyes.

"You okay?" I sensed some genuine concern in her query; she gave a hard sniff, and I wondered if she'd been crying, or if she was just allergic to all the emotional turmoil in her house. "You wanna come over, after school? My parents won't be home, doubt they'll be sober when they get back."

"Hold up—" I heard voices drifting in from the living room, the sound of heavy, jackbooted footsteps, asses creaking into leather seats. "Lemme call you back."

I replaced the phone on the hook and padded over to the doorway to the living room, sallow morning light beginning to stream in from the windows, like the flesh of a lemon. The house felt painfully empty, a permanent tension hanging in the air with Ponyboy's absence, one that was only exacerbated by Soda not being home. I didn't want to think about what he was doing, especially not when I saw, out the corner of my eye, that the other man was a cop.

"Officer," Darry said, impatience bleeding through every word like ink through cheap paper, "I've told you everything— several times. He hasn't contacted us, I haven't seen him anywhere, he never said where he was goin'. Just tell me... do you think Ponyboy will be charged?"

"It's unlikely to me," the cop said, his knees pressed up to the coffee table, "the stabbing wasn't premeditated, and his only crime seems to have been endin' up in the wrong place at the wrong time. John Cade, however... off the record, considering his..."

"His _heritage_ , huh?" Darry looked darker to me than usual, with the curtains drawn the way they were. "His _socioeconomic background_? While Bob Sheldon was a white kid with a rich daddy, and that made him a real class-act?"

"I'd be more worried about my own brothers, if I were you," the cop said mildly. "As it stands, you have a helluva chance of losin' custody of him... all of them, if I'm bein' honest with you. You've been given a lot of leeway, considering the circumstances of your parents' accident, but Darrel, a judge is going to ask some questions about why Ponyboy was involved in a situation like this at all. Regardless of his complicity."

"I keep Ponyboy in line," Darry said shortly, his teeth clenching into each other loud enough for me to hear it— our dentist wanted him to wear headgear at night, so he didn't grind them into powder. "I made sure he was in before dark, made sure he did his schoolwork, made sure he stayed away from hoods—"

"If I can speak frankly about your father—"

"And tell me what I figured out a long time ago?" Darry let out a small scoff. "This whole neighborhood, you got things any social worker would vomit seein'— hell, Johnny's home life, that's enough material to keep a case worker busy through retirement. But our daddy sells a couple grams—"

"Maybe your father sheltered you from the extent of his criminal involvement," the cop said stiffly, like he was reading from a script he'd written for this scenario, "I'm the last person who would fault him for doin' so, but you can't blame social services for being concerned about his family in the aftermath of his death— I wouldn't be surprised if this incident was framed as Ponyboy followin' in his footsteps, in a custody hearing. At the very least, I can easily see a judge deciding that in light of his upbringing, he might be better off in a boys' home— and the same goes for Sodapop."

Wow, the first example of anyone chastising Ponyboy for being too much like our daddy, a nasty part of my brain snickered— I didn't even know where it was coming from, maybe too many childhood memories of the two of them butting heads. Ponyboy, who took spiders outside to prevent them from being squished under Darry's size twelve work boot, judged for Dad's crimes? The thought was ludicrous, beyond belief.

"Is that all, sir?" Darry said, in a tone I'd only heard him use when he was talking to the judge who'd arranged for Rose's visitation.

"I think so," he said stiffly, making his own way out. "Please don't hesitate to contact us if you hear anything else about Ponyboy's whereabouts, if he comes home... I know you don't much believe me, but we're on the same team here."

He shut the front door behind him, and I unwisely entered the room. Darry stank, he hadn't showered in days, he was wearing a holey t-shirt that Mom would've consigned to the ragbag the instant she saw it on his back— the toolbar around his waist was the cleanest part of him. When he noticed me, his gaze skidded straight down my face, and he looked like the last remaining shred of his soul had died right then.

"Jasmine, go to school."

School. Right. I was supposed to go there, in another life, another timeline. "I can't," I said, "not like this." The whole left side of my face was one arresting, purple-black bruise, and no amount of foundation could cover it up in full. I'd have to trot out the excuse beloved by every East side wife who got beat at home— _I walked into a door. More like, I walked into the business end of a Glock._

"You want me to yell at you? You want me to ask where you were, Jas, like you been stayin' out a couple hours past curfew?" There was nothing at all behind his cold blue eyes, a numbness I recognized whenever I saw my face in the bathroom mirror. "I don't have time for that shit, treatin' you like some kid no more. Just tell me one thing. Where's Ponyboy at?"

"I don't know—"

"Don't play with me," he cut off, though for once I was telling him the unvarnished truth. "Any retard could figure out Dallas got him and Johnny outta town, no matter what bullshit story he fed the police. I ain't askin' you to take me to him, just—"

" _Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead._ " I stiffened my spine. "That's the only thing I been able to get out of him. Scout's honor."

"Jasmine Eugenia, you better—"

"Or what?" I matched the harshness of his stare— it had been a long time since Darry was able to intimidate me, and after what had just happened in the warehouse with Joe, his anger felt laughable, ineffable. "You gonna put me through the wall too?"

That was a cheap shot, like kicking him right in the nuts, and I knew he'd crumble as soon as I mentioned the night that had driven Ponyboy away from home. He raked his hands down his face; when he pulled them away, there were marks from his blunt fingernails on his cheeks. "I don't care anymore, okay, I can't handle this shit anymore. Just go to school."

"You tell me one thing," I said, my chin tilted up, with the poise of a queen. It kept me from bursting into tears again— funny, how I'd smeared snot all over Dallas last night, but the thought of Darry seeing me cry made my stomach squirm like I'd swallowed a bag full of worms. "Are you gonna fight for them? You gonna hire a lawyer, a real one, not just one of Dad's shady friends? You gonna tear that court apart?"

He was fixated on the myriad of crosses affixed to our living room wall— _yeah, Mom, how else would someone know that you, a white woman living in Oklahoma, are a devout Christian?_ Every time I thought I might be getting closer to him, he ended up inevitably revealing the truth of how he felt about me, like he'd had a few too many scotches at the office Christmas party. "What do you want me to say?" I hated the helplessness, the pleading in his voice— he was the guardian, the adult, even if he was only twenty and as clueless as the rest of us, he shouldn't be here begging for our _validation_. "Jasmine—"

"I ain't tryna scold you like the pastor's wife, gettin' on you for takin' too many cookies at Sunday school." I swiped a lash off the concavity of my eye socket— _make a wish,_ but I didn't know what to wish for. "I'm tryna tell you what to do. They better not go into the system."

"And I don't need you to tell me nothin'," he said, but his tone was more conciliatory than I wanted, his frame too collapsed with exhaustion to let me hold onto my anger like a hot coal. "You ain't easy, Jas, you don't make nothin' easy on me, bein' a girl and all. Not that you act like much of a girl to begin with—"

"... I'm sorry," I said, and, inexplicably, remembered the bratty not-apology I'd bit out at him the day I was late for Miss Edwards's visit. He hadn't deserved that. If I was really being honest with myself, he hadn't deserved much of what I'd given him. "I'm sorry," I said again, for lack of anything else to say.

"Soda said Rose hit you, the other day," he said; he hadn't acknowledged the apology, maybe there was enough of the old Darry left in there after all. "That true? She rough up your face like that?"

"No," I said, though I would've gained a lot more room to maneuver if I'd lied to him then. Maybe I was overcome by the urge to be truthful lately, to create a facet of my life that wasn't just a construction. "She just slapped me one time, is all, she didn't mean it."

"I didn't, either."

We both laughed. A sadder sound never rang through our house.

* * *

I didn't go to class, couldn't bring myself to, despite having put on a long-enough skirt and saddle shoes to play the part— I considered heading down to the rodeo to watch Dallas ride, but the whole world felt bleary and colorless, the sun beating down on my head disorienting me, and I was still too sick from the night before to head to the Ribbon and knock a few back. After spending three hours taking a nap in the janitor's closet and another two smoking under the bleachers with a couple other burnouts, I returned home to find Soda polishing off a bottle of beer, Angela sitting at his feet, an attentive cat waiting for her chance to strike.

She fanned herself like a dehydrated southern belle and took a swig after he put it down— Soda snatched it away from her. "Go raid your own brothers' icebox," he said. "Or, you know, here's an idea— get your own brothers to kill a man for you."

My blood turned to ice, my veins cracking with the expansion of it, and I made my presence known as I cleared my throat. "Angela, the hell are you on about?"

She shot me a coldly amused look, leaning back on her splayed palms on the carpet. "What, you think if you don't tell him somethin', no one else will? How well did that work out for you before?"

I could've punched her— if she'd been one of my brothers, I would've. If only she hadn't been terribly, painfully right on all counts, and that realization snapped my trap shut.

"I'm not gonna kill someone." Soda looked downright green; I prayed he wouldn't actually projectile vomit all over the bedspread, because I'd have to end up washing it out. "I'm not gonna—"

"He's tryna kill your sister. He's got his lil' pack of goons runnin' around the city, with guns, after her— what kind of man _are_ you?"

 _He kidnapped your sister, held her at gunpoint, and tried to rape her. If we're keeping an honest score._

"If you don't do it, I'll get someone else, or maybe I'll take my chances myself," she added calmly, before Soda could stammer out a defense of his masculinity. "Use your brain, for Chrissakes, I know you got one even if you dropped outta school. You want to leave, this might be your only chance."

Soda stared straight at me. "I liked Sylvia a hell of a lot better than this one."

"I like Ponyboy a hell of a lot better than you, too, 'least he got a pair of balls on him." Wow, we'd met the first woman to ever be able to resist the famous Sodapop Curtis charm. "My uncles always said you ain't got no future unless you take care of your present. And none of us have no future 'til he's six feet under." She turned to me, they both did.

"Maybe we should go to the police."

Angela's eyes widened— then, seeing I was serious, she snickered at me, loudly. "Girl, you've lost your fuckin' mind, it's official."

I sat down beside her and poked at one of the stray fibers on the carpet— I got the distinct impression that I was at a meeting of kamikaze pilots before the suicide mission, one I couldn't shake. "Soda ain't done nothin' crazy yet, nothin' they can prove... I got picked up last night—"

"You got picked up?" Soda sounded like a civil defense siren. "Last night? The hell were you doin'?"

"It was about Ponyboy." The lie easily escaped me, though I didn't even know why I was telling it— maybe because the truth felt more fantastical than any story I could come up with. "Soda, listen, maybe if you agreed to give up some information— does Eli let you in on anything, anything important?"

"You're all idiots." Dallas said it with no small amount of panache as he swooped into the room, his bangs slicked down to his forehead with sweat, his clothes faintly but undeniably reeking of horse shit. "I'm serious, this is the worst strategy meeting I seen since whoever was plottin' the latest season of Gilligan's Island."

"Fuck outta here, Dal," Soda said.

"Or what?" Dallas asked, "you a big Tiger man now, huh, you gonna make me?" He gave off one of his short, bitter laughs. "I do _not_ wanna be here when Heavyweight Curtis finds out about this, holy shit."

"You wanna go to the circus, buy a ticket." Soda seemed a little more straight-backed now, less impressed by Dallas and his schemes than he had been when we were kids. "Go home, I'm not in the fuckin' mood for your smug bullshit right now."

"Well, I'm the only one here who's ever actually... left a gang, ya know." (Always the actor, he made sure to leave a dramatic pause in there.) "Surprised nobody decided to ask for my expertise in this challenging situation."

"Norm packed the two of you into a U-Haul and didn't hit the brakes 'til he reached Oklahoma," Soda said irritably, "not sure how that applies to _my_ situation."

Dallas pulled a sweaty stack of bills out of the inside of his leather jacket and shoved them across the mattress at him. "Get outta here, man, if you're serious. Get outta here and don't look back. It's the only way you'll be able to live, without wonderin' if your number's been called every time you so much as head out to a burger joint."

"I can't take this," Soda said automatically. "Dally, I can't—" He shoved it aside, not even trying to flip through the bills to see how much he'd been offered. _Dilaudid, three different barbiturates, pot, heroin_ , my brain unhelpfully supplied the source. "Take it back now, I ain't gonna use it for nothin'."

"At least let me— I don't wanna watch you die, man."

Soda pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, his massive handwriting spilling over and under the lines— he'd paper-clipped a solid part of his paycheck to it, too. "Give this to Pony."

I expected Dallas to pull his old dog and pony show of denying everything, lie without so much as a twitch of his eyelid, but instead he just gave Soda a curt nod and took it. "All right. All right, don't worry."

* * *

Dallas's room was as much of a mess as ever, I blearily noticed before I threw an arm over my eyes, the same detritus of dirty boxers, empty deodorant sticks, and beer bottles still littering the floor— at least he'd had the good sense to get rid of the needles, before one sank into the sole of my foot. When we got married, I'd have my hands full picking up after him, like my mama had spent her life picking up after her husband and three boys—

 _When we got married._ If they were still alive, my parents no doubt would've approved, especially my mother, if he cleaned up his act— probably would've considered it inevitable, that one of my 'brothers' would've wanted to make our relationship a little less fraternal. But now I realized, with a quiet finality, that Dallas wasn't going to marry me, not now and not ever. Not unless I showed up on his doorstep crying and waving a blood test, and maybe not even then.

He was better in bed than Curly, always had been. But I still felt empty and alone, lying here with him.

"Are you two... _Jesus_ ," he trailed off, reading my mind. "You and Curly—"

The bare skin of my pelvis stuck to his; I shifted off his lap, uncomfortably warm. "You're the one who left me, last I checked," I tried to bite out, but it was a pale imitation of my usual mouthing off. "Slept with Sylvia, too."

"He doesn't love you," he said with childish petulance, "doubt he even likes you, if you want me to be honest. Christ, what are you doin' with that kid?

"Do _you_ love me?" He'd claimed as much, in Buck's basement, but I'd never taken it as fact.

"You ask too many dumb questions." He kissed my forehead. "Listen to me 'stead of talkin' for once. Soda— he's gotten himself into more shit than he can climb out of. But I can't believe I actually heard 'get five-o involved' come outta your mouth, like you was born yesterday. Then you wonder why the hell I won't tell you where Ponyboy is."

"I don't see how else this is fixin' to end." I traced an aimless pattern in his dirty, holey sheets— I wondered if he'd ever changed them since the day he first crashed on the bed— and avoided his eyes. "Go ahead, give me another solution if you got all the answers, but either he becomes a cold-blooded hood or he's zipped up in a body bag. Maybe if he spilled to a cop, threw him a few details, he'd get protection—"

Dallas grabbed me by the chin and jerked it towards him, a gesture I disliked enough from Darry and Angela's uncles without it coming from my... boyfriend? too. "You can't trust a cop— you can _never_ trust a fucking cop. They'll lie and lie straight to your face until you crack, it's perfectly legal, and then they'll twist everything you said and slam you with a sentence long enough to give the DA his yearly bonus."

"And if anyone sees him snitchin'?" he continued, telling me what my daddy had drilled into my head before I could write my own name. "He's a dead man. He's a liability. Only time you can be in a police station, in _this_ hood, is if you got handcuffed in the back of the car... and you better know how to keep your trap shut good while they're grillin' you."

"It's my fault. This is all my fault."

"Yeah, decent amount," Dallas said, never one to mince words. "But you ain't gonna get him out of it, you and Angel, with no dumb scheme. He's gotta make the choice himself."

It was the wisest thing I'd ever heard leave his mouth. I just didn't want to accept it.

* * *

"This show is shit."

"Yeah." I shoveled chips into my mouth and sipped the drink Angela had mixed together, some bad imitation of a mimosa with three dollar champagne. "Do they dress Jeannie in those gauzy outfits so the _male_ viewers forget how flimsy the plot is?"

"Jeannie's this astronaut's slave, obviously it's meant for the male demographic." Angela sighed and took a sip from her own chipped plastic cup. "Man, when I was a kid, my mama didn't let us watch any TV that wasn't some priest blabbin' about the commandments. I'm startin' to think she had the right idea."

The front door creaked open— the Shepards really needed to oil their hinges— and Angela blanched whiter than I thought she could. "Shit, it's Tim, hide the booze—" her panicked breath hit my ear, but she didn't even get it under the couch before Ed came into the living room.

"Hey, Daddy," Angela said, looking like she wanted the beat-up leather cushion to engulf her whole. "I didn't think you'd be home yet."

"Speak up, girl." He didn't say it with much harshness, or much of anything, already sinking into the adjacent armchair and putting his work boots up on the coffee table. "Who's this?"

"She's Jasmine, Jasmine Curtis... she's one of my friends from school."

"The hell kind of name is _Jasmine_?" Ed scoffed, with what I imagined was his usual amount of tact. "That a flower or somethin'?" He got up and turned the TV dial until he hit a football game, the Sooners getting crushed. "I never stood for names like that, honey, the other kids must've made fun of you _bad_ at school. You could've been called Jane or Judy or Janice, for what it's worth."

"My daddy thought it was the only pretty thing in the South Pacific," I said a little testily. As ridiculous as I found our names half the time— Ponyboy was a terribly anglicized version of something Apache, Sodapop was one of the guys Dad bootlegged with, Darry was a namesake— I always got defensive when a stranger made fun of them. He was an original man, an original person. There weren't so many of those anymore.

An unpleasant cast came down over Angela's face. "Curly's been datin' her some."

Ed's eyebrows formed such a sharp V, they almost met together. "Don't even mention Curly to me right now. Your mama's heartbroken, and when she's heartbroken, she can never shut the fuck up about it." He pointed right at me. "Girl, if you got any sense, you'll let this be the end of whatever you had goin' on with him— that kid's a bad egg. Mix me a drink, Angela."

She got up and went over to the liquor cabinet, mixed an Old Fashioned without protest— he accepted it with a grunt in lieu of thanks, and she didn't seem to have been expecting any. I looked on in distaste at the whole scene— my daddy might've been a lush, but he'd never made me play family bartender, and if he'd come home to me and Sylvia splitting a bottle of champagne, he would've had a thing or two to say about it.

"I dunno where I went wrong with him," he said after taking a furious gulp. "I worked my ass off keepin' y'all in line, worked _overtime_ , and now Curly's fifteen and on his second tour of juvie. Maybe it's in the blood, all the Mexican blood. Maybe it was never somethin' I could fix."

"Lemme get this straight," a snarl came from the foyer, one it took me a few moments to place as Alberto's. "You and your inbred hick ancestors, that's the prize pedigree of Tulsa, but you add a splash of _spic_ to the mix, that's where all the criminality's comin' from."

"The fuck are you doin' here." Ed's voice lacked any inflection, he barely turned his head to face Alberto, though he'd strolled into his living room packing heat. "Does it _look_ like what I need right now is you tellin' me how to raise my kids?"

"Gringo, I wouldn't be runnin' my mouth to the guy payin' my rent half the months on the calendar," he shot back, though Luis was probably responsible for that bit of book-keeping. "And— _your kids_?" He forced out peals of exaggerated laughter from his diaphragm. "After you spent all day tryna put Curly out on the street, that really the hill you're fixin' to die on? You ain't nothin' to him."

"You ain't his nothin', neither," Ed said with no small amount of glee, "ain't that right? Or are y'all still preferrin' to live in denial?"

Alberto clenched his fists and swung his arms out in front of him; he hadn't bothered to take off his massive Ray-Bans inside the house, which made him look even more intimidating than usual. He could've bloodied Ed's nose pretty easily, cracked one of his ribs, but instead he just exhaled through his nose like a bull in the ring. "Yeah, it's not Curly I'm here for," he said, jostling Ed's drink as he passed by. He hauled me and Angela up by our elbows— I was too startled to protest. "Let's go for a drive, girls. I wanna show you somethin'."


	34. Life in the Fast Lane

I shouldn't have gotten into the car with him any more than I should've gotten into a car with a rattlesnake, but I hadn't expected him to try anything with Angela in the backseat. Only when he pulled a knife on me, one hand still resting on the steering wheel, did I realize why he'd insisted I ride shotgun.

"You snitchin' now?" His breath stank of bourbon, his bangs falling into his bloodshot eyes; the whole world jerked from side to side as he nearly lost control of the car. "That your _brilliant_ idea?"

"What the fuck?" Angela screeched at a pitch I thought only bats could hit. The blade hovered millimeters away from the base of my throat; he pulled over, the rubber of the tires skidding and shooting off sparks, but Alberto's hand didn't tremble the entire time. "Tío—"

"Quiet," he snarled, but he had enough of a conscience not to point it at her, still keeping it trained on me; I was mesmerized like he was dangling a medallion in front of my eyes. "Yes or no? And you better not lie to me, you know I'll find out."

"I didn't!" The panic that hadn't struck me with Joe now hit me like an iron weight to the stomach, my palms near dripping sweat. "I wasn't snitchin', that ain't what happened—"

"Promise me." The tip connected with my skin, the coldness of the metal like a tiny drop of hail; the slightest bit more pressure, a flick of his wrist, and he'd draw blood. "Promise on your daddy's grave, or I'll take you out right now. Dead men tell no tales— and dead broads, I suppose."

"I promise."

He tucked the blade back into his pocket, carelessly, like it was a ballpoint pen— somewhere in the distance, Angela was still screaming. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" I demanded once he'd let go of the handle, launching my elbows into my knees, my breath fast and hitching. "What the fuck is your damage?"

"Let's see—" He put his sunglasses back on. "You pulled up to Buck's in a cop car last night, _chica_. Hell of a lot of people saw it, too. Ain't nothin' personal, you're just known for havin' a big mouth, and I didn't make it this long without bein' careful."

"I didn't tell them nothin'," I said indignantly, though in the past twenty-four hours, I'd given the idea plenty of consideration. "They picked me up, is all, seein' as I'm the sister of a _murder suspect_ —"

"Exactly who are you tryin' to bullshit." Alberto jammed the key into the ignition again and hit the gas so hard, I felt like I was plunging down a hill on a rollercoaster as he jerked away from the breakdown lane. "Guess I jumped to conclusions, you must have one hell of a poker face, since no one's figured out who you shot right through the thigh last night."

"How d'you know that?" I couldn't stop my eyes from sliding towards the backseat; Angela gasped like some of her dinner had gone down the wrong pipe. "Is he sayin'—"

"Oh yeah, he's spread the story far and wide, about how five-foot-nothin' Annie Oakley got the drop on him— no, Dallas told me all about it," he said matter-of-factly. "All puffed up like a fucking peacock, braggin' that _his girl_ could put a bullet in Joe while we're sittin' around with our thumbs up our asses. By the way, honey, any time you wanna pick the right bachelor already is fine by me."

"Why didn't you get him between the eyes?" Angela actually had the nerve to ask me.

"My hand slipped, okay, I'm sorry, it ain't so easy to hit a movin' target—"

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" Angela's doll-sized fist collided with my shoulder-blade, hard, then again after I gasped. "What the _hell_ , Jasmine, when were you gonna say shit about it? What happened?"

"Bit of a traumatic experience, Angela, sorry, it's taken me a little while to process _shooting a man after he kidnapped me_ —" That was already more than I'd wanted to share.

"Y'all shut up," Alberto said easily, and the fact that he was toting around a knife made me obey the order. "The only catfights I like watchin' are between Luis's two baby mamas he won't admit are his." He made a sharp U-turn, heading towards our neighborhood again. "I guess there's more of your daddy in you than I thought, we'll keep you," he said, pinching my cheek. "Angel's right, though, could've taken care of that problem permanently if your aim wasn't so shit."

When he was preoccupied with flipping anyone going the speed limit the bird, Angela leaned forward. "Fuck you," she hissed into the space between the seat and the headrest, and her hot breath on the back of my neck felt more menacing than anything Alberto could've pulled on me. "You fucking liar."

* * *

"So I talked to that punkass they got in charge of their outfit now, David," Rafa, Tim's second-in-command, announced to the whole vacant lot, informing us just how beneath him the Socs vs. greasers conflict usually was. Why, even stepping into Curtis turf was already pushing it. "And we figured out how to settle this, 'fore half the city goes up in flames." He paused for dramatic effect— Tim had no doubt trained theatric delivery into all his boys, punctuated by blows with a tire iron every so often. "The rumble of the century, couple days from now, right here. If we win, they stay out of our territory for good— if they win... well... we ain't gonna think about that yet."

Sylvia and I were stuck entertaining the girlfriends of assorted gang members while the boys held their powwow, which was hard to do with Darry there, preventing any drinking or drugging from going down— I kept watching Tim out the corner of my eye, a dark blush heating up my cheeks when he stared right at me. I doubted he was thinking about me at all, with his brother headed towards juvie and his crew headed towards an unprecedented war, but—

I was still fifteen, okay. Cut me a break. I didn't want him, but a part of me still wanted _him_ to want _me._

"This is a _real_ gas, huh?" Sylvia whispered to me _sotto voce_ , blowing a stray wisp of hair off her forehead. "That Gabi Lopez, I don't care if she's been shot through the stomach or what, you can take one look at her and tell she's a bobby-soxer." Gabi, as always, seemed distinctly nauseous when she was more than six inches away from Tim's side. "Think he'll marry her without hearin' the magic words 'I'm pregnant' first? The one night king's searchin' for wife material?"

Gabi craned her long neck to look at us, perched on the hood of a souped-up '63 Chevy. She was pretty, no denying it, but she'd be even prettier if she wore her skirts above her knees. "I'm Colombian, not deaf," she said with Natalie Wood's coolness. "And we'll get married when I'm ready."

We shut our traps after that.

Two-Bit had gotten jumped a couple of days ago, and while that wasn't nearly enough to dampen his spirits, he still looked as though a Soc had backed up his Mustang over his face. (Darry and Dallas were around to bail him out pretty quick, but you hear him tell it, he was holding off an invading hoard of them like he'd parachuted onto the beaches of Normandy.) So naturally, when Cherry Valance's bright red Stingray pulled up with a loud screech of the tires, the mood darkened a little.

Cherry looked terrible as she opened the door and climbed out— she had deep hollows surrounding her eyes that only came from crying, her hair was unbrushed, and she'd probably slept in the wrinkled sweater set she had on. "Beat on outta here," Sylvia said flatly, speaking for all of us, "while you still got all your shiny white teeth in your mouth. This ain't the place for your kind."

"Who's this lil' broad, and why's everyone starin' at her like she shot JFK?" Rafa jerked his thumb at her. "Nice wheels, sweetheart, you willin' to sell?"

"I go to school with her," I said, half-rolling my eyes. "She considers herself more of a Jackie than a Lee Harvey Oswald, trust me."

"Please, I didn't—" She swallowed so hard, a visible lump came down her translucent throat. "I feel like this is all my fault. The jumpin', Johnny gettin' stabbed—"

"Good job, Mr. Holmes." Dallas smiled at her, leaving the tight cluster of Tim and his posse to saunter onto the scene. "It _is_ all your fuckin' fault, actually, glad they teach some critical thinkin' in the schools nowadays. Now why'd you haul ass all the way over here to tell us that?"

"Because I want to make things right." She straightened her posture. "I'll... I'll testify at the trial, when Johnny comes back. I'll say he was acting in self-defense."

"You still in love with me, doll, is that what this is all about?" he asked in a dangerously soft voice. "Why don't I take you down to the DQ, then— or maybe we should skip to the good part in the backseat of my truck, 'cause that's all I ever wanted. To figure out whether the carpet matches the drapes."

She sneered at him like he wasn't worth the asphalt under her twenty-dollar boots, before she remembered she was supposed to be practicing _noblesse oblige_. "I can spy for y'all, too. Tell you what they've got planned."

"You think anyone's buyin' this shit?" I stepped in to say. I didn't like Dallas talking about her that way— not out of any feminist principles, but more like a dog pissing on my territory. "What's to stop you from just feedin' us false info?"

Dallas flicked the ash off his cigarette in her direction; some of it landed on her skirt and she jumped backwards, disgusted. She'd probably never even lit up before, princess that she was. "Well, I vote we jump her right here and now, how 'bout, cut this one short."

"Yeah, that sounds 'bout right." Rafa tightened his grip on the length of pipe in his hands. "It'll send 'em a real strong message, won't it? You don't fuck with us. Not even broads. We ain't fixin' to hold back."

"C'mon, man, you're out of order," Two-Bit said like a warning shot, raising one of his tattered brows. "She's a broad, she came over here tryna _help_ us—" He fingered the handle of the black switchblade in his pocket, his prize possession. "Don't start shit now."

"An eye for an eye, ain't that how the world works?" Dallas hocked a wad of chew onto the asphalt, Two-Bit's jump for his weapon only inflaming his anger. He'd never taken real well to being contradicted or talked down. "'Cause that bitch wanted to slum it for the night, my boy's sleepin' outside with one eye open—"

"... Don't," I finally said, putting a hand on his arm to keep him from raising his fist at her. "Don't do it."

"You feelin' sorry for Socs now? That's your own brother out there."

"Dad wouldn't have liked it." He never would've stood for this, despite his otherwise skewed moral compass— and I wondered what Dallas had witnessed in his life, that he didn't see any problem here. His mama slapped around, before her death? Stepmamas? "You know he said men who hit women ain't men at all."

Dallas bit down hard on his lower lip, his incisors digging into the torn flesh, but his jaw unclenched and the battle with his id was won. "... Fine." He shrugged me off to rejoin the massive powwow of every available male, obviously talking about Cherry but trying to avoid staring at her too much— leaving her to the tender mercies of the female of the species.

She'd been taught enough manners that she even stuck her hand out to greet me— I looked at it like it was a dead mouse, or something equally disgusting. "Thank you," she said with a sharp gulp of air, "thank you for that—"

"I didn't do it for you," I sneered, high off the rush of power this gave me. "Dally was right, your lil' boyfriend's the reason why my brother and his best friend are runnin' all over from the law. I just didn't want him to feel bad after he knocked the daylights outta you."

"Bob wasn't as bad as y'all make him out to be." A spark of something flickered in her emerald green eyes— defiance, maybe, in the face of all this opposition— and I would've admired it if I hadn't hated her so much. "He was funny, he was a gentleman, everyone liked him—"

"Oh, he was a real _class_ _act_ all right, America's fuckin' sweetheart." I enjoyed the way she flinched at the profanity more than I should've. "You wanna know somethin' about Saint Robert Sheldon? What he was up to right before he died? He was buyin' knockoff coke from me and feelin' up my tits. How many other greaser girls was he all over, you think?"

"Dally's not interested in you, cupcake, trust me." Sylvia snapped her gum and gave Cherry an up-and-down— we'd fallen seamlessly back into our old pattern, tag-teaming any broad who dared cross us. "Or any other frigid West Side princess." She looped her arm around my waist. "So why don't you run on home and leave my girl alone, okay?"

"Why are you bein' so awful to me?" Guess they weren't kidding when they said redheads had fiery tempers— secretly, I was glad she was fighting back, it made me feel better about the ugliest parts of myself swimming to the surface right now. "I didn't do anything to you, I came here to try to _help_ —"

"Why am I bein' so— you just forget what you an' your friends were sayin' about Angela? About what her stepdaddy did to her, y'all think that's a real laugh riot? I should've slammed your head into the shelves, too."

"I tried to stop it—"

"Not hard enough, did ya?" My left hand trembled; I had to actively concentrate on holding it steady. "I don't buy your little change of heart, nobody else does either, so save it."

"Things are rough all over, you don't have a clue," she said, surprisingly fierce in her anger. "You don't have a clue about Brenda—"

"Yeah, they're rough all over the East Side, and they never let up." I looked up at the night sky, but it was too obscured by smog for any stars to come through. "You better figure that out fast, if you wanna hang around these parts."

* * *

Sandy lived in a worse part of town than I expected, though I already knew that she didn't have the best home life from Soda's cagey descriptions; when I climbed up the steps of her porch, I couldn't help but notice the cigarette butts scattered everywhere, the trash they burned in their yard, the shingles that had fallen in shards onto the ground below. It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for her.

A harried woman answered the door who must've been Sandy's mother— she looked just like her, aged up twenty years and with lines on her face from stress and too much smoking. "Do I know you?" She wiped her wet hands off on her faded floral housedress. "It ain't a good time for visitors."

"Hi, Mrs. Thomas," I said, trying to turn the charm on, "I'm one of Sandy's friends from school. I just wanted to—" I cast my gaze down, looking up at her through my eyelashes— "well, say goodbye."

She snorted. "Sandy don't have no more friends, but if you really wanna see her, she's packin' in her room. You oughta be gone before my husband comes home."

Sandy's room was as light and feminine as the image she tried to project, decorated in pale pinks and whites like a little girl's birthday cake— clothes were strewn all over the bed and floor, and Sandy appraised each piece in turn, seeing if it would fit in a suitcase that was already full to bursting. "Liz, I swear to God, if you don't get your hands off that dress—"

Liz— her kid sister, it was obvious enough, she was maybe twelve or thirteen— still held it out in front of her, examining herself in Sandy's full-length mirror. "What do you need it for? You won't fit into it soon enough."

Sandy swiped her on the back of the head; a bruise was purpling along her cheekbone (either the work of her stepdaddy or someone at school), and her usually luminous blonde hair hung lank and unwashed. "Get out—" she gave Liz a shove towards the doorway— "just get out and quit botherin' me already." Liz stuck her tongue out at her, and I listened as her bare feet slapped against the carpet, probably running to tattle to their mother. "What, you here to gloat? Slutty Sandy got what's comin' to her?"

… Yeah, Steve had definitely coined that one. "You leavin' tonight?"

"Tomorrow mornin', I'm takin' the bus to Miami." She turned her face, so I'd only see the unmarked side. "You didn't answer the question."

"Brought a present for you." I removed the entirety of my ill-gotten gains from my purse, slapped the wad of bills onto the mattress next to her. Over a hundred dollars, and letting go of them felt like pulling my arm out of a bear trap. "Take it. Babies are expensive."

"Why are you helpin' me out?" She paused in the middle of folding a short mod dress; she'd always been too cunning for her own good. "Why would you give me money?"

"It's dirty money. Blood money." I smiled at her. "You deserve it. I ain't tossin' it in the trash, but I ain't givin' it to my brothers, neither."

"You think I'm gonna turn it down, huh?" She snatched the bills up like she was grabbing the last bite of pie from a sibling. "Act too proud to beg? If you're dumb enough to waste your money on me, I ain't about to throw it back in your face."

"Just tell me one thing."

"What?"

"Who's the daddy?"

"Tim Shepard."

My jaw actually dropped, like in a comic strip— man, if Tim had thought he'd gotten a bad ass-beating when he stole my mama's watch, he was in for it now. "I'm kiddin', Lord, you should've seen your face. Come on, you know it was Dom." She tested the latch on the suitcase; it wouldn't close. "Tell Soda—"

"What, that you still love him? That you're sorry? Save it, he got bigger problems than your excuses right now." I hadn't felt angry at her until she brought up Soda's name. "He wouldn't have forced you to get married or have six of his kids with meaningful names, he ain't like that. He would've waited as long as you wanted."

"You don't know men, that's your problem." She still hadn't dropped her habit of talking down to me, I noted with no small amount of irritation. "If you think any guy's fixin' to wait, much less _Soda Curtis_ , who could get any broad he ever batted those long lashes at—"

"Maybe not," I said. "But I know my brother."

"Tell him to stay away from girls like me, next time... and I know he'll find another one." She gave me a wary look out the corner of her eye— God, they were beautiful, I'd never seen eyes that shade of cornflower blue before. A lot of good it did her. "Girls like us."

"I'm nothin' like you."

"Really?" She turned away from me and exhaled through pursed lips. "You stickin' to that one? Think we both know you're tryna get with the most powerful dealer on the block." She didn't sound judgemental or anything, just matter-of-fact. "I'd bet on Curly, if I were you. He's hungry, he wants to be in charge. Only place Dally's headed fast is the morgue."

* * *

The next couple of days passed with a sticky, maddening calm, stretched out in front of us like two pieces of taffy that wouldn't break apart— but when I walked into the principal's office and saw my aunt and my social worker next to each other, vultures waiting for their chance to pick the meat off my carcass, I knew I was royally fucked.

"Jasmine, honey, sit down," Mr. Jones said, the second sign of the apocalypse— he wasn't the type to use first names unless he was announcing a death in the family, and we were far from being on 'honey' terms. I complied with wobbly noodle legs. "Miz Edwards wants to talk to you."

"I can't turn a blind eye to the situation any longer, Jasmine, you livin' in such a dangerous neighborhood." Rose nodded along with every word— she could've been the mother of any of the Soc girls, with her expensive handbag and neat hat. "I've said it a million times, but it's just escalated to the point where I have to insist that you go home with your aunt... immediately. Before you end up jumped or _worse_ , my goodness." She turned to Mr. Jones. "Bob Sheldon— he looked like such a nice boy in that picture of him, in the newspaper—"

The picture of Johnny was slouchy, a mandatory school one for his ID card; he was really just too shy to look the camera straight-on, but came across as defiant and sly to someone who didn't know him well. Nobody would call him a nice boy, not with the cut congealed above his right eyebrow when it was taken.

"His death certainly was a tragedy— a young man with so much potential, cut down in his prime," Mr. Jones said like he was eulogizing fucking Achilles here. "But police are still investigating the circumstances of the stabbing, and of course, Jasmine's brother's involvement..." He steepled his fingers as he studied me. "You haven't heard anything from him lately, have you?"

"No, sir," I said, my vision tightening into a pinhole. _I wouldn't tell you shit even if he had._

"This is for the best, sweetheart, I promise." Rose looked clean and sober today, her hands neatly folded in her lap, the Platonic ideal of a doting aunt. "Maybe you can even spend Christmas here again, if things calm down."

"Okay, okay," I said, Daniel in the lion's den; I forced my eyes to glimmer with unshed tears. "I understand. Can I just... go to the bathroom first?"

Rose regarded me with suspicion, she was sharper than I liked to admit, but Mr. Jones waved me off. "Of course... you take your time now."

I waited in the hall until it was empty, went in, checked for more witnesses, and climbed out the window.

* * *

I swore I wouldn't set foot in a rodeo again, but, well, desperate times called for desperate measures. Dallas was combing out a horse's mane with surprising gentleness in the stables; I wrinkled my nose at the stench of shit and hay, the clouds of flies swarming around my head. When Dad had suggested he take up a hobby that wasn't punishable by law, I never imagined a city boy like him would decide on riding bull. "Hey, princess," he said as he saw me approach. "You missed my big race— not that I'll hold it against you. Much."

"Let's get outta here."

"What?"

My jaw was set as firm as the handle of a knife. "You said if Rose tried to take me away, you'd drive off with me straight to New York. So let's go. Let's hit it."

Judging by the look on his face, he neither remembered this nor had meant it at the time, but I have to give credit where it's due— he didn't protest. "Sure, I keep my promises," he said calmly, putting down the brush and wiping the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. "You tell Darry and Soda you're skippin' town yet?"

I'd gone home long enough to throw some essentials into a duffel bag, still running on pure adrenaline, worried I'd hear police sirens before I could make my getaway. "I left them a note, okay? They'll understand later."

Thank God I was dating Dallas, and not anyone with a shred of impulse control. "Eh, what the hell, I could use a break— between all the Ramirez bullshit and the Soc bullshit goin' down, feels like I can't take a piss without dodgin' a bullet." He pulled his car keys out from the back pocket of his jeans and just barely remembered to latch the door behind the horse. "Besides, I got some business to take care of."

"Where are we goin'?" I only asked after we'd left Tulsa city limits behind, cranking down the window to light a cigarette. Darry had strictly forbidden smoking in his truck; Darry was the last person I wanted to think about right now, or I'd lose my nerve altogether.

"Figured it's about time I showed you where your brother's at."


	35. Secondhand Smoke

"You okay?"

Dallas's voice only halfway disturbed my daze; he'd offered me a joint ten miles from the outskirts of the city, and that combined with the nicotine had more than sedated me. "Yeah, why?" I cranked the window down again, but the balmy early-fall air did nothing to sober me up. "I didn't have that much, don't worry 'bout it."

"That ain't what I'm talkin' about." The words were sharper than the sentiment behind them; he swerved and narrowly avoided a pothole that more resembled a crater. "You got drugged up and almost gang raped by the head of the Kings, for fuck's sake, and you're actin' like nothin' in the world happened."

I clamped my left hand between my skirt-covered thighs before he could notice it shake. The bones shoving up against the thin skin on top seemed more fragile than before, more breakable. "Ain't you one to talk, Doktor Freud." As usual, I snapped back with defensiveness when I wasn't in the mood to be vulnerable. "It's fine, I'm fine. Just life 'round here, ain't it? I knew what I was gettin' into."

"Don't be a bitch 'cause you don't want to answer the question." I slumped against the back of the passenger seat, wishing the world would just stop turning for a second. "I hate when you do that shit."

"Don't be a _hypocrite—_ maybe I'm gettin' tough, just like you, ever thought about that?"

But that was a lie, I didn't feel hard and tough at all— more like an axe had plunged through a sheet of ice inside of me, dangerously close to losing control of emotions I'd suppressed for a long time. I was slipping.

"Fine, do whatever the hell you want, then." We settled into an angry, tense silence; I lit another cigarette, though my throat was already scratchy and dry from too many of them. When he spoke again, he'd shed the better part of its vitriol. "So I'm a lost cause, don't mean I think you are, okay? You could've killed yourself that night, poundin' shots like you wasn't gonna see tomorrow."

"You ain't no lost cause, don't give me that," I said with more optimism than I really felt; the wind rushing by blew out the cigarette before I could take more than a couple of drags, and I stubbed it out on the rim of the window. "You just want people to expect less from you."

" _Ha_." He bit down on the filter of the Kool he was sucking on. "You know what one of the ol' biddies at my elementary school said when she thought I couldn't hear her? 'By fourth grade, I can tell which ones are headed for graduation and which ones are headed for prison'. Guess what I was headed towards?"

"I can't believe—" though plenty of teachers had said similar and worse to Soda over the years, so I shouldn't have been surprised. "That don't make it true."

"Really? 'Cause the grade after that one, I'd already spent the night in a cell." The tone of his voice dared me, just dared me, to pity him. "I know what I am. Leopards don't change their spots and all that shit."

"Dad did, didn't he?" I recognized my words for the desperate fairytale they were, but still couldn't stop myself from letting them come out. He'd ached for Dallas once, tried to mold him into something other than his inevitable conclusion. "Maybe... maybe things could be different for us."

"You want a nice, peaceful life in the suburbs, somewhere like Broken Arrow— you picked the wrong guy. I'd rather die with a bullet in my chest than die of _boredom_."

 _Do you want that, do you hope for that?_ I was tempted to ask him. _You pretend not to give a damn, but I know you care about me, and Ponyboy, and Johnny more than anything— don't you have any fears for yourself?_ But I didn't. I rolled the window back up and leaned my arm against the glass, resting my head on it, and let the sound of tires on asphalt lull me into a stupor again.

"Ain't nobody ever gonna love me, babe, just fear me," he finally said as I hovered on the border of sleep and wakefulness. "Trust me, I know the score."

* * *

When we finally reached our destination, it was dawn; I jerked awake with a start as Dallas slammed on the brakes, and found myself deep in... the countryside? "Where the hell are we?" I asked, squinting suspiciously at the green grass as far as the eye could see, the weasel burrowing its way out of a hole and scurrying off into the... trees? I might as well have landed on Mars, though Dad had taken my brothers out hunting here a few times.

"Where I stashed these two— hope they're still here, damn." Dallas put his hand in front of his eyes to shield them from the sun, then wrenched open the driver's side door— there was a dilapidated church up ahead, only lacking an ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE sign to make me not want to go in. "My cousin Jimmy and me, we used to sneak out and smoke grass here, it was a real tuff hideout. Miss that fucker."

I didn't dare ask why.

My breath caught in the back of my throat as we made our way out of the car and creaked open the church door, to find the two of them curled up on the rotting wood floor, using their jackets as pillows. I didn't want to wake them up and disturb their sleep, not yet, but Dallas clearly had no such reservations.

"Hey, Sleepin' Beauty—" Dallas prodded Ponyboy's thigh with the toe of his cowboy boot, still caked with mud and shit— "told you I'd be over here soon enough."

"Dally!" Ponyboy jumped up like he was coming out of a Jack-in-the-Box; Johnny blinked awake a second later, rubbing his eye with his fist. "Wait, Jas—"

"Yeah—" he shot him a rare grin— "brought someone along to see y'all."

"Pony!" I almost knocked him over with the way I barreled into him, squeezing him tight enough to crack his ribcage— he hugged me back just as hard, his hands scrabbling at the collar of my blouse. "Shit, kid, you better never pull nothin' like this again, Darry's been worried sick," but I was too preoccupied with sniffing his hair to—

Oh my fucking god, his _hair_.

I held him away from me at arm's length and blinked rapidly— it was still a pale, straw-like blonde, the dye unevenly distributed and his darker roots already showing at the top. For a second, I thought I saw Mom staring back at me. "The hell happened to you, Pone? You fall into a puddle of bleach backwards?"

"It's my fault," Johnny said, "I told him we needed to disguise ourselves." He'd shorn a solid chunk of his dark bangs off, his scar standing out even more on his forehead— Christ, they both looked like they'd just gotten out of reform school. "He sure hollered 'bout it, don't blame him."

"Sylvia can fix it," I said, "when we get home, she can dye it auburn again—" Pony took a step back from me, and I could tell more than adolescent pride had gone into it, the embarrassment of his big sister fussing over him with Dallas right there to watch. He hadn't forgotten what had flown straight out of my head, what we had done to each other, the scores he had to settle with every last one of us. He hadn't forgotten at all.

An awkward silence followed, but Dallas had never been much of a respecter of any kind of silence, period. "Brought you a letter from Soda," he told Ponyboy, thrusting the wrinkled paper into his hands. "He's been worried as shit, Darry too—"

"I don't care what Darry's worried 'bout." Ponyboy skimmed the letter (that could've used a good copyedit) and set it aside with a carefully neutral face. "Why'd you bring her here?"

He said it to Dallas, like I wasn't there at all, but Dallas's lips hadn't parted before I entered the ring. "You ain't the only one with problems— trust me, I didn't even know I'd be cruisin' down here. And Darry's a wreck over this—"

"Why are you defendin' him?" He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose; I felt the urge to turn around and flee this cramped, moldy room. "He don't want you, ain't you figured that out by now, with all the business with Aunt Rose? He don't want none of us."

"Shut up, kid," Dallas with a light cuff to the back of the head, one he prevented me from delivering myself, "I've been givin' Superman nonstop shit 'bout this, you know I'm on your side, but even I'm not gonna lie and tell you this made all his dreams come true. He's been a nervous wreck, an' that's the honest truth."

Ponyboy didn't ever dare contradict Dallas, and fell silent again, deflated. "We've been readin' Gone with the Wind, to pass the time." Johnny nudged me slightly— the supermarket paperback looked like they'd dropped it in a puddle once or twice. "Playin' cards too... but there ain't been much to do since before y'all showed up."

Johnny had always seemed curiously insubstantial to me, not quite there— like one of those kids in old movies who gets tuberculosis and doesn't make it to the end. But there was a new steadiness to him, a determination; he didn't so much feel like my baby brother's twitchy friend anymore. Not since he'd killed a man at close-range.

"Glory, yeah, I can see y'all been havin' the time of your lives up here, you look like you've been through the mill." Dallas surveyed the room with a critical eye. "With the spiders and the mice and all." Then he snatched a smoke up from a pack they'd tossed on the ground and spent the next minute cussing it for not being a Kool.

"You sure can cuss good, Dally." Johnny looked up at him like he was a statue of the Madonna.

"Damn straight," Dally said, grinning at his admiration, "but don't you kids go pickin' up my bad habits, hear? Y'all wanna get some food? We skipped breakfast, I'm starvin'."

" _You're_ starving?" Ponyboy indignantly squawked.

"We're awful hungry," Johnny ventured, "ain't had a decent meal since we got here—"

"Well—" he dangled his car keys between his fingers— "I'll give you a ride for your money."

* * *

Dallas alone was probably enough reason for why insurance was about twice as expensive for teenagers— not that any of us had insurance, or that he so much as had a license. Even behind the wheel sober, he was... a force to be reckoned with.

"Listen, Grandma," he hollered out the window at a volume that broke the sound barrier, "why don't you think back to when you was young and your husband still fucked you, okay, and hit the gas? I ain't got all day here."

Grandma responded with words I didn't think they taught ladies of her generation.

The DQ we reached in Windrixville wasn't much of a hangout. Someone had put a nickel in the jukebox to play James Brown's new hit, Papa's Got a Brand New Bag— I was surprised folks around these parts could listen to a negro singer without calling for the men in the pointy sheets. "I got plenty of money," Dallas drawled as he watched Pony and Johnny inhale their sandwiches, "y'all don't hafta act like it's your last meal on death row."

Well, if that didn't kill the mood flat dead from the start— Dallas scratched the side of his head, sheepishness an awkward look on him, while Johnny and Pony blinked at him. "Shit's blowin' up all over the city," he finally said, "y'all missed a lot. That Cherry broad, you won't believe what kinda wild card she pulled out on us here— yeah, your girlfriend, Pone, turns out she's a real pistol."

Pony blanched whiter than a Klan member. "She ain't my girlfriend, the hell, Dally—"

" _Sure_ she ain't—"

I slurped my coke dry as he tried to summarize the affair; when Johnny interrupted, it was with a hard edge I didn't know he was capable of, this decision must have been brewing inside of him the whole week they were gone. "We're gonna go back and turn ourselves in."

Three, two, one, and Mount Dallas erupted. "You outta your mind? There somethin' in the water 'round Jay Mountain? What'd I waste my money and my gun on, again?"

Johnny was twenty years too young for the lines gathering in his forehead, like angry stormclouds. "I don't have no record with the fuzz, neither does Pony, and it was self-defense. Sheldon was tryna drown him in that fountain—"

"Look in the fuckin' mirror, genius, then look at a picture of Sheldon," Dallas said in the harshest voice I'd ever heard him use on Johnny. "Who d'you think the judge is gonna side with here, him or some redskin from the wrong side of the tracks? _Self-defense—_ your kind get three warnin' shots in the back before you can turn around!"

"I ain't no redskin," Johnny snapped back, which would mark the first time I'd ever heard him talk to Dallas with anything but awestruck reverence. "My daddy's white."

"Johnny, Jesus, you're darker than _my_ daddy was." I shook my head, feeling more and more helpless by the second. "You go back there, they're gonna fry you."

"What do you think you did, kid?" Dallas had him by the shoulders in the next second and gave him a hard shake. "Stole a beer from the corner store? Sheldon's daddy owns half of Tulsa—"

"I ain't no kid, neither!" He yanked himself out of Dallas's grip. "I damn well know what I did, but what other option do I got, huh? Live on the lam forever, hide out in that church for the rest of my life? That's worse than the chair, ain't it?"

Dallas lit up one of their Camels, despite the garish No Smoking sign in the window behind our table, and didn't say a word until he'd worked it down to half of its original length. When he spoke again, his calm was balanced on a knife's edge. "You sure? Our kind get it harder than anyone else."

"We'll give you the gun back," Johnny said miserably, "the rest of the money, too, so you can't be caught up none of this—"

"Keep it, fuzz already drag me in for every public urination case on our turf, already got the shit knocked outta me 'cause of this one." He turned to Pony, who was inhaling his third sandwich and showed no signs of stopping. "What d'you think about this, huh, hotshot?"

Pony picked at the peeling vinyl on the chair. "I mean, it's the only thing we _can_ do, ain't it? Come back? What else is there, keep runnin' all around the country like some kinda queer Bonnie and Clyde?"

Dallas stubbed his smoke out on the table and looked back at Johnny, softer now, like he was examining a puppy taking its first few shuddery steps. "Cool it, kid, c'mon now."

"I ain't a kid." Johnny's lips formed a temperamental moue. "I'm a year younger than you, you oughta quit treatin' me like one."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, you're the kid who told me to beat it at the Nightly Double." Dallas scrubbed his knuckles on the top of his messy head; despite himself, Johnny cracked a grin. "You oughta have taken your own advice there, buddy, maybe you wouldn't be in this mess now."

He threw his balled-up napkin down on the table and got up, shoving his chair back so violently it fell over. "Let's get outta here."

* * *

Even at the best of times, Dallas was never a very good actor, and it took until we'd ripped out of the parking lot for the façade to drop. " _Dammit_ , Johnny, couldn't you have decided on this a week ago? Would've saved us all a lot of trouble, just sayin'."

"My parents—" Johnny tried to pose the question casually, but the stiff set of his shoulders and jaw made it obvious it was anything but. "Did they ask 'bout me? 'Bout what happened?"

"The boys were worried 'bout you," Dallas said matter-of-factly, "Jas too. Two-Bit wanted to head on down to Mexico to look for you."

"My _parents_ —"

"No, they didn't, and the hell do you care?" He made such a sharp turn, Ponyboy muttered something under his breath about dying just like Mom. "Shit, my old man don't give a hang if I'm in the pen or drunk in a gutter or dead in a car wreck, it don't bother me none."

Sure it fucking didn't.

Johnny stared at him with big, wide Bambi eyes, like this was the first time it had occurred to him that his parents weren't his biggest fans— Dallas brought his fist down on the console, leaving an indent in the leather. "When your daddy don't give a damn about you, beats you, you can't give a damn about him either." He brought it down again, just for the satisfaction of feeling the blow against his knuckles. "You can't sit around wonderin' whether he thinks about you, 'cause he don't. He ain't never thought about you before without spittin' on the ground first."

"Dal—"

" _Johnny_ ," he said in a high, strange voice, "I just don't want you to end up like me, okay, not when you're here wishin' your piece of shit daddy loved you. Hard, and cold— jail, it fucks you all up inside. It _breaks_ you, man."

"You always said—"

"I was _lyin'_." He slammed his fist into the steering wheel now, hard enough to make the horn blast off and the driver beside us flip him the bird— I was afraid he might tear the entire car apart, before he was done making his point. "Okay? You happy now, you figured out I was just tryna sound tuff? It was bad enough for me, it was ten times worse for the colored guys, 'cause the guards knew nobody was gonna miss them."

"So you think it's a bad idea?" Johnny asked. "You think it'd be better if we stayed on the lam, squattin' in hideouts?"

The thing about Johnny was that to him, Dally's word was law like Hammurabi himself had come back from the dead and carved it into a stone tablet. If he'd said yes, he would've gone right back into that church and squatted there until he decayed into the floorboards, I was certain of it.

But Dallas's answer is lost to history, because as he pulled up to the top of the hill, we saw that the entire church had gone up in flames.

"Shit," Ponyboy said from the backseat. "Think we might've forgotten to put a smoke out."

* * *

Dally slammed on the brakes hard enough to send all of us reeling forward; those two geniuses were already flinging the doors open. " _Git_ back in here before I beat your heads in," he shouted at their retreating forms, but they'd already taken off towards the wreckage. "The hell do they have between their ears? Oatmeal? They think they're gonna play the hero now?"

Before I could really process what was going on, or grab them by the collars, those two imbeciles were exchanging brief words with a fat guy around a ring of schoolkids and running right towards the direction of the blaze. "What the fuck do they think they're doin'?" I pushed the door open and sprinted across the grass, only to hit his torso straight-on.

"Hey, hey there, little lady," he said in the voice he probably used on the pack of second graders he was shepherding. "I tried to hold those two back, but they just had to go after the kids still inside, nothin' was stoppin' them."

"My brother's in there!"

"And what kind of good are you gonna do him, Tinkerbell?" Dallas had gotten out of the car himself and wheeled me away by the shoulders, back towards the mass of weeping, snotty kids and the female student teacher supervising them, wiping at her own eyes with a tissue. "'Cept be another damsel in distress for their dumb asses to save?"

" _Damsel in distress_?" I about kneed him in the groin. "He's my little brother! I'm the one that oughta be savin' him!"

How I'd resented my mother for saying as much, foisting him off on me— but now, more than I ever had before her death, I understood where she was coming from every time she tied him to my apron strings. He was a responsibility I could never put down.

Dallas kissed me on the forehead, hard. "Stay here an' calm them kids down, okay? I'll go get him— and Johnny, too."

I didn't have the time to yell at him for his antiquated perceptions of women before he darted off into the burning church himself. He was gallant, Dallas, when it was down to the wire. You had to give him that.


	36. Come Together

I didn't hate hospitals any less now, but I preferred this to being in the ambulance to Saint Francis, worrying the same scrap of my skirt between my fingers and listening to my brother's increasingly hysterical rambling. Ponyboy sat next to me, slumped in one of the hard plastic chairs; Jerry, the fat guy who'd ridden with us, furrowed his brow as he lit up a smoke.

"Y'all shouldn't be doin' that."

"I don't see a No Smoking sign nowhere," I said more waspishly than he deserved, sucking on my own weed just for something to do. I dared him to tell me it was because I was a broad, I'd heard more than enough of that mess for one day.

"Well... y'all are too young, even if there ain't one." He gave us looks of stern, paternal disapproval, like he couldn't believe what kind of hole we'd crawled out of, though Pony had already broken the whole 'wanted for murder' situation to him. "How old are you, thirteen, fourteen?"

"He is, I'm almost sixteen," I exaggerated by a fair few months; though I realized I should've been grateful Jerry was still there, I wished he'd just fuck off and leave us alone already. The air in the Burn Unit stank of a heavy load of antiseptic, I fought the urge to sneeze. "What's the big deal? Johnny, he started when he was nine—"

Pony gave a small, pained squeak at Johnny's name, and I shut my trap after that, silently working at the rest of the weed; Jerry fidgeted with his wedding band and finally got up, the nervous anticipation coming off of us too much to take. I didn't need to ask Pony to know what he was thinking about right now. My hand grasped at empty air, overtaken by the muscle memory of clutching Soda's, as we waited for news like it was our execution coming down the pike.

"Dally... he'll be all right, Jerry said as much," I said in a feeble attempt at comforting him; he shot me a trademark condescending look from behind his rusty eyelashes, so different in color from the bleached mess on his head. Glory, would Darry's jaw drop when he saw—

Forget about that.

"Johnny won't be." He picked at his cuticle until he ripped it off altogether, producing a bright flash of blood that was out of place in this sterile ward. "He broke his back. You don't recover from somethin' like that."

"He might." The artificial quality of my voice was obvious even to me. "People survive—"

"Don't _lie_ to me." He might as well have slapped me, with the force he put behind the sentence; he clenched one fist, his veins and tendons bulging out from under the skin. "Y'all treat me like I'm in kindergarten or somethin', I'm sick to death of it. Even if he lives, he's gonna be paralyzed; he's gonna be stuck in that house with people who hate him— forever."

"You're a spoiled brat, you know that?" I projectile-vomited the angry words at him; I hoped some flecks would hit him square in the face. "You've had us lookin' out for you and protectin' you your whole life, just 'cause you're the baby, so quit actin' like you could handle—"

 _Handle—_

I didn't need those eyes trained on me, the same way they scoured the hems of my skirts, the cigarettes dangling between my lips.

Pony smacked me on the arm, pretty damn hard too, and we might've ended up really getting into it if Darry and Soda hadn't burst through the entrance before security could escort us out. "Someone's here to see you," Jerry said with a completely unnecessary wink.

Soda threw himself at Ponyboy first, crushing him in a hug with all the force of a boa constrictor; he damn near knocked him off the chair. "Pone... your hair, your tuff, tuff hair..."

Showed where priorities lay in our family, honestly.

Darry hadn't approached the scene, hanging back while the two of them choked the life out of each other; it physically hurt to look at the picture of devastation he made, hovering near the doors, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his olive jeans. He was crying, something I hadn't seen him do in years, not even when the rest of us had broken down at Mom and Dad's funeral— I wouldn't even have known where to begin, comforting him, but Ponyboy broke free from Soda's grip and sprinted to him before I had to. "Darry!"

"God, I thought we'd lost you, like we lost Mom and Dad..." he managed to say through shaky, breathy sobs; Ponyboy clung to him, his own shoulders trembling, and it didn't take Soda long to make his way over there too.

I didn't try to enter the hug; instead, I felt like I was watching my brothers after my inevitable absence, like my face had been wiped from a photograph with correction fluid. If I was really being honest with myself, the open display of emotion in public made me uncomfortable and itchy. "Dally"— I turned to the doctor— "the blond one, is he gonna be okay?"

"Well, he's certainly healthy enough to run his mouth to every nurse in the vicinity..." We shared a wry grin. "There's some nasty damage that's been done to his arm, though— I don't think the functioning will be overly impaired, but he's going to have impressive scarring for the rest of his life. I hope he isn't too vain 'bout his looks."

Dallas would love that, having a scarred arm, but he probably wouldn't want to admit he got it saving kids from a church fire. Might pretend he took a Molotov cocktail full-on instead. "Can I see him?"

The doctor fiddled with the stethoscope around his neck. "It's really supposed to be family only, in his condition—"

"He ain't got no family." I shuddered at the thought of Norm hitting up the ward. "Me and his gang, that's it. I'll be quick."

His eyes darted around the waiting room, but everyone was far too preoccupied with Tulsa's Most Wanted to pay us any mind, and so he took me by the elbow and led me down the hall.

* * *

" _Honey_ , I ain't fixin' to tell you again, you won't find a decent vein in that arm, so quit wastin' your time," Dallas drawled, with far too much smugness in his tone for someone with severe burn wounds. He'd been in the bed for an hour and already looked like he wanted to stage a prison break. "Jasmine!"

Over the course of our relationship, that was the happiest he'd ever been to see me, his face lit up like the sun; he tried to prod the long-suffering nurse out of the way with his good elbow and gestured me towards him. "My girl's here, lady, you mind givin' us some privacy?"

"That heart monitor's real sensitive, so don't be gettin' no ideas," she shot over her shoulder as she walked out; I blushed scarlet, and Dallas laughed out loud.

"Didn't I tell you not to ever shoot up for a reason?" I'd never noticed the collapsed quality of the veins in his inner arm before, the chewed-up, scarred skin; I preferred to look there than at the cocoon of loose bandages surrounding the other one. "Shit, I thought lil' Ponykid was a goner, I about had to break his back to put the fire out in it. 'Least you had the sense to listen to me."

I sat down on the edge of the bed, the springs digging into my ass; he smelled like smoke and flame and ash, like the aftermath of a volcanic explosion. It got deep inside my nostrils and stayed there. "Dally... Johnny... he ain't doin' too hot."

"He'll be fine," Dallas said too quickly, "kid's tuff, real tuff, ain't nothin' he can't handle."

 _Even a shattered spinal column?_ I didn't say it, though, because I didn't want to consider it so much myself. Pony wasn't the only member of our family skilled at self-delusion. "We might be allowed to see him tomorrow," I said, trying to bring that lie back into my voice. "He's in critical condition, but they gave him plasma—"

"Never mind all that stuff." He tugged me closer to him with the good arm; his rare bursts of protectiveness usually irritated me, but not tonight. "You real scared? With me headin' in there?"

At any other time, I would've thought it a display of machismo, seeing if his little woman was real, real impressed by his heroizing, but he looked as genuinely concerned as he was capable of being. "Yeah." I took a ragged breath. "I dunno what I would've done if you'd—" I trailed off, smacking my fist against one of the pillows to fluff it for him. "I love you."

I'd never said it to him before, but as I did, I realized that it was true; a faint flush of pink tinged his cheeks. I wondered if they might've given him something for the pain, or more than a little something. "I know. I—"

But I never discovered what he was going to say, because that was when Rose burst onto the scene, accompanied by a convoy of cops. "Jasmine!"

Well, fuck me. With all this shit going down, I'd clean forgotten I was supposed to be running away from home.

* * *

Rose reached out and hugged me against her chest once they'd dragged me back into the hall, but the gesture was performative, she didn't even pull me close enough to wrinkle her freshly-starched blouse. For all of my mama's faults, more than Pony or Darry ever wanted to admit, she would've held me for real, and her lack struck me like I was one of those monkeys in the experiment that had been given a wire mother instead of a cloth one.

Cop didn't buy the touching scene for a moment, and I was grateful that him clearing his throat made her break away from me. "Young lady," he huffed, one hand hovering above his regulation heater, "did you know that running away is a crime?"

I curled up my toes in my shoes, trying to anchor myself against the floor; the last dregs of adrenaline in my blood had left me shaky and lightheaded. "I ain't on probation—" His expression didn't budge at hearing that. "You fixin' to charge me?"

"Not this time." He tugged me back over to Rose's side; she didn't move to touch me again. "Pull a stunt like this again, though, you might just be spendin' the night at a halfway house, not goin' home with your aunt. Lot of kids would kill to be livin' with a nice lady like her."

Somehow, with all the turmoil around me, it hadn't quite occurred to me that upon getting caught, that was the inevitable conclusion. Maybe if I had, I wouldn't have hopped into the ambulance. "I can't go nowhere with her," I tried to protest, "my brother's still here, he just got back—"

"Uninjured," the cop said without an ounce of sympathy; a few rows over, Soda was mugging for a reporter like he was Marlon Brando, his arm slung around Pony's shoulders. I couldn't really argue the point. "He doesn't seem much worse for the wear, if you ask me."

"Johnny—"

"Isn't allowed visitors," Rose picked up his slack, "I'll bring you back tomorrow, if he stabilizes." She grabbed me by the upper arm before I could get another word out, like a misbehaving toddler. "Officer, thank you. I don't know what I would've done with myself if you hadn't—"

Hadn't done what, exactly? Police mediocrity was really getting to be something else in this precinct, and pondering that fact kept me unhappily preoccupied for the next couple of minutes, before I could realize that I hadn't gotten to say goodbye to my brothers.

"I oughta whoop your ass, is that what it's gonna take to keep you in line?" she hissed the second we left the public eye, in the vast emptiness of the concrete parking lot; I clutched my duffel bag, that the fuzz had managed to extract from the wreckage of the situation, like it was an anchor. "My mother never put up with anythin' from me when I was your age."

"I'll tell Miz Edwards you're beatin' on me." I rolled my eyes way back in their sockets as I buckled my seatbelt. At least she looked sober enough not to kill me on the drive home. "In gratuitous detail."

"She'd probably give me a medal, after all the grief you've given that poor woman." Gravel crunched under the wheels as she pulled out; I still hadn't stopped thinking this was a car made to be stolen. "The devil's gotten into you?"

I pressed my cheek up against the cool glass of the window. "Devil's always been in me."

"You're a spoiled brat, Jasmine." The words stung more than I wanted to admit, an uncanny echo of what I'd just thrown at Ponyboy. "You do whatever you feel like and never think about the consequences."

"That ain't true—"

"Ponyboy's on the lam for murder, family's torn apart, and you decide to go on your own joyride to top all that off— I just don't understand you sometimes." She angrily shifted gears. "If you wanted to stay with your brother so badly, why couldn't you at least try to behave yourself, convince that woman you didn't need to be moved? You're not stupid, no matter what your grades say, you should've figured out that it wouldn't reflect well on your case. Seems you don't even care enough about him not to give him grief at a time like this."

"It don't matter— nothin' matters anymore, didn't you hear the state?" I wasn't sure if I was trying to convince myself or her, at this point, why I was wasting my breath on the effort. My voice sounded distorted; when I closed my eyes, flames licked up the edges of my lids. "They're even takin' Soda now, and he's near old enough to look after himself. They were never gonna let a drug dealer's son raise no kids."

"Nothing matters to you. That's your whole problem." She took her eyes away from the road long enough to tilt my cheek up with her palm. "You always got a smart answer to everything. You're your daddy's daughter."

"My mama's, too."

"A twenty-year-old has no business raisin' his fifteen-year-old sister, and that's the end of that." We were heading into her temporary neighborhood now, on the West Side, where the apartments downright gleamed— I wondered if I'd be jumped as a traitor if anyone saw me over here, and if I wouldn't welcome it. "My husband's comin' to sort this out. God help me, maybe you'll listen to him better than you ever listened to me."

I could've mentioned so many things then— a crack about their estrangement, her lost son, her pills for waking up and going to sleep— made threats, extorted promises, but I kept it zipped. What she said had really gotten to me, and I didn't feel so comfortable passing judgement anymore. I'd never even considered how Darry must've felt when another sibling went missing.

* * *

Being at Rose's house full-time was about as pleasant as I imagined Angola State Prison was from the inside, except with better plumbing. She didn't make me go to school, which I thought I'd be grateful for, but not when it was because she didn't trust me not to pull another runner— instead, she took the day off from her job and spent most of it glowering at me, or on the phone with an unpleasant mix of her estranged husband and her lawyer. When Angela came knocking, I was almost happy to see her.

I must've looked like a Soc as I answered the door, simple, pretty makeup on, a blouse that was buttoned up all the way, pulling a cardigan onto my shoulders— Angela's drugstore blush gave her face the effect of having been freshly slapped. She made no effort to hide her sneer; the past few days hadn't tempered her anger. "We oughta talk."

"I don't have time for this," I said sharply. "You better leave, my aunt's gonna have a coronary if she sees you."

"Ain't you just a real lady now. Nice flats, you borrow them from Cherry Valance's closet?"

"Shut up." Any patience I'd ever held towards Angela had vanished, along with most of the uneasy reverence. "Did you really show up here to take the piss out of me? You itchin' for a fight, you think it'll make you feel better about yourself?"

Maybe we _should've_ fought, grappled with the disappointment in ourselves and each other in some kind of tangible way, but that just wasn't how girls operated— we traded in secrets and lies, in words with a thousand hidden meanings— and Rose never would've tolerated blood being spilled on her clean linoleum, after she'd woken up from her Valium nap. Not for the first time, I thought I should've been born a boy.

"No." She tilted her chin up and gave me a defiant look I would've recognized on my own face. "Soda told Darry that he's in the Tigers now."

The sheer stupidity of the action actually made me stumble back and clutch my chest, like I was having a heart attack or something. Darry wasn't the most observant guy in the world, or I never would've been able to get away with half the shit I'd pulled in the past few months. "How would you know?"

"I was over there to say hi to Pony, see how he was doing—" why was I not surprised— "could've heard them hollerin' at each other from the next state over."

"Was it bad?" I managed to plant my ass into one of the dining room chairs, get out the question through numb lips, like I'd eaten an entire bowl of pineapple in one go.

"Darry said he'd kick him out of the house, but he was probably goin' to end up in a boys' home anyway, so he didn't see the point in botherin'."

"... Did he say anythin' about me?"

The soft, pretty lines of her face— fat lot of good it'd done her, but Angela would always be a beauty— calcified with contempt. "That's the most important thing, huh?"

"Least I ain't usin' him as a tool for my revenge." I turned away from her, disgusted; I wanted to cut the rot out of both of us like out of an apple. "Don't pretend you ever gave a flyin' fuck 'bout what happens to him, with that crazy plan of yours. Joe was right, only thing you know how to do is look out for number one."

She didn't hit me. I would've deserved it if she had.

"I'm tired of your fuckin' _games_ — I've had enough. I been shot at, held up, threatened—" I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Your whole family sees me as a _thing_ — and maybe I walked into it, but you can't just use my brother the same way."

Angela had my mama's ability to break down inside and gather herself a minute later, without ever revealing that she'd been hurt. "You think Pretty Boy Curtis has what it takes to be a Tiger, then?" She let out an ugly, flat guffaw, like one of the horses Dallas corralled. "You know what you have to do just to get _initiated_ into my uncles' gang? Kill somebody and bring back proof. Once you're in the life—"

"We're all comin' up with a million and one plans to get him out, everybody has their two cents." Rose wouldn't like me lighting up in her apartment, the smell of smoke leaching into every nook and cranny of neat chrome, else I would've done it before I said the next words. "But why ain't Soda comin' up with his own? Face it, he's in that gang because he wants to be."

"If it were my brother—"

I snorted and looked away from her. "Your brothers were born hoods and they'll die hoods. I don't see you jumpin' to get them on the straight and narrow."

"Soda was born a hood, too. Don't you at least wanna try to save him, 'fore he turns out like mine?"

My daddy stared back at me, in an orange jumpsuit, his eyes an empty vacuum— I couldn't recall what he'd said during my one visit, only the sheer miasma of hopelessness that surrounded him. His face morphed into Soda's in the bank of my memory, the differences minimal, their destinies the same.

I didn't know why I'd kept the paper from the cop around in the shallow pocket of my school skirt, but I still pulled it out— it didn't matter that the lead pencil was smudged into illegibility, because the numbers were seared into my mind. With suddenly shaky muscles, I stepped over to the phone and reached for the receiver.

"Yes?"

"I need your help— I need to meet with you." I swallowed hard. "But it has to be discreet. Or else I'm gonna be buried in a ditch somewhere."


	37. What Is and What Should Never Be

I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO DAMN LONG. Wish I had a better excuse, but I've honestly been busy with work/school/friends/life, and for a while I hit a massive block with this story and couldn't figure out how to continue it— this chapter has been written for a couple of weeks now and I was so reluctant to edit and post. I'm back on track now and have the better part of the next chapter written, though, and I promise I'm never abandoning this.

(Alternate explanation— I didn't have the heart to kill Dallas) :(

* * *

We met in a quiet, unobtrusive corner of Jay's, in a booth close to the back, but not so close it would look like we had something to hide. I'd instructed him to wear plain clothes, God forbid not pull up in a squad car, and pretend that he fit in on this side of town without trying to arrest anyone. Judging by the way he eyed the junior high boys twirling Baby's First Switchblade around, it'd be more than a bit of a learning curve.

I took an obnoxious sip out of my chocolate milkshake, one my mama would've scolded me for, just to fill the silence. Lord, if Mitch's hair really wasn't red like carrot shavings— it made him look younger than he really was, and maybe that was the reason why I'd taken the leap and trusted him. "I'm not gettin' beat at home. That ain't what happened to my face."

"So what did?"

"Got pistol-whipped."

A city cop shouldn't have been naive enough to let the onion from his burger dribble out his mouth, but he was. Poor bastard— I assembled his entire life story on the fly, a childhood spent in Broken Arrow or a surrounding suburb, ice cream trucks and riding his bike in the streets, joined the force because he wanted to 'make a difference in the community'. "I'm so sorry," he said in the same voice I'd heard from Miz Edwards when I'd first met her, a couple of days after my parents' deaths, the obligatory empathy you gave to a stranger. "Who did it? Are you still—"

"I don't like the fuzz," I cut in just to stop the stream of questions, though it wasn't the wisest thing to say. "On principle. If anyone from this part of town found out I was talkin' to you right now, they'd have my head— and I mean that real literal. All the gangbangers I know just ain't fixin' to help me, and it's a little urgent."

He didn't bristle and ask who the hell I thought I was, disrespecting an officer; instead, he wrinkled his brow ever-so-slightly, in a way that pierced my heart with the memory of the same expression on Johnny's face. "What's your problem with us? You seem like a nice enough girl—"

The operative word in that sentence being 'enough', huh? "You and your buddy were both right, back at the station." I traced patterns in the leftover milk on the sides of the glass with my straw. "My daddy was Indian, my mama was white— my brothers pass okay most of the time, guess you know by now I don't. We all got tribal ID cards in a drawer somewhere, though, we got blood quantum."

"Was?"

"They were in an auto wreck, last January." I could just sniff out what he was thinking, that my daddy had been yet another drunk Injun driving his truck into a tree and taking his wife with him. "But before he died, swear a week didn't go by without some cop treatin' him like a criminal, askin' what he was doin' goin' around with a white woman." I took another thoughtful slurp. "I mean... he _was_ a criminal... but they didn't know that on _sight_."

"I didn't like the way Harris talked to you, down there," he said with more social consciousness than I'd expected from him. "I didn't like it at all. If that's what you're worried about... I supported Robert Kennedy. His civil rights legislation."

"They ever tell you 'bout my daddy? At the station?"

"No." He shook his head for emphasis. "Figured out soon enough that you were related to that Curtis kid, though. You ain't so slick."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, my lips flitted into an approximation of a smile. I'd never known a pig to have a sense of humor before. "He was a dealer, big one, on this side of town— Pony ain't nothin' compared to him. He did some time back in the day."

He stared at me like he expected me to reach the point where my story made any kind of sense. "My brother Soda's in a gang too now— he joined up to protect me from a hit." I performed a cold calculation— Darry by far had the darker skin and hair, but apart from being a towhead, Soda's entire face made his Indian heritage obvious. I needed to rack up the sympathy, he wasn't some white boy Soc who could play the 'wrong place at the wrong time' card. "Lord, I could've been killed." I let tears well up along my bottom lash line, blinked so a couple would spill over onto my cheeks. "But I can't let him stay in a life like that. Please, just tell me you can do somethin' to help him—"

"I wish I could." Hearing that hurt me far worse than Luis clutching his dick, laughing in my face. "But there's no magic solution that's gonna get him out, especially if he doesn't want to leave himself—"

He was parroting social worker lines, about personal responsibility, being accountable for your own actions, but the situation was far too desperate for me to fold my hands in my lap and play along with his charade; he wasn't nearly as innocent as he was pretending to be, and neither was I. "Do you know Joe—" God, I'd never even heard his last name before, despite the indelible impact he'd had on my life. "Joe, the leader of the Kings?"

Mitch tilted his head a couple degrees south, and a new sharpness entered his eyes as he scrutinized me. "The one who owns all them brothels? Yeah, might've heard of him before. But I don't see how—"

"Soda's in the Tigers." I swirled the melting ice around in my glass. I didn't have the money to buy him out, I didn't have a charge for him to take, but I could offer this up. "And I know where his warehouses are, who's in his outfit, how he operates. I know he's got a big, fat bullet hole in his leg right now, he ain't runnin' very far from you."

"... I'm listenin'."

* * *

I should've gone back to Rose's place, not shown up at my own, a house that felt like a foreign country at this point. I told myself I wanted to see Ponyboy, see how he was holding up, but that was a lie too obvious even for me to believe. I wanted to make an entrance.

Darry shrieked with laughter as I walked in, too far gone to even register my presence. "Soda... Jesus fucking Christ, if you're in a gang, you can't live here. I don't care how many reasons you're spittin' at me to justify your _asinine_ behavior, you need to get out, and fast."

"Would you calm the hell down?" Soda said, his voice thick with irritation. He was wearing a blue bandana wrapped around his bicep; I was surprised Darry let him stroll around with it on, but God knew Darry had long since lost control of everybody's behavior. " _We're_ in a gang, last I checked, even if it's just fightin' Socs. This whole damn neighborhood's in a gang. Maybe the state's gonna be more willing to let us stay if we can pay the electric on time for once."

"I don't want gangbangers showin' up here and puttin' a bullet through Ponyboy's skull when one of your buddies decides you been 'disrespecting' him." Darry bit down on the web of skin connecting his thumb to his index finger. "You think you're grown enough to join the Tigers, I ain't washin' your boxers for you like you're some kid. Ain't like it's even up to me, the second the state hears about this, they won't give a damn how much more dough you're bringin' in all of a sudden— you'll be in prison and he'll be in a boys' home."

I waited for Soda to give him the _real_ reason for his sudden descent into delinquency, or at least one of them, but he didn't even consider selling me out— if I'd questioned before whether or not any of my brothers loved me, I had no doubt now. Darry opened his mouth again, then snapped it shut.

"What?" Soda taunted. I didn't like the fresh look of taunting on him, it must've been something he'd picked up from his new 'brothers'. "What are you gonna say? You wish that Dad was here? That he could knock some sense into me? Ain't like I never heard that before."

"Fuck Dad." Darry didn't spit on the ground, but I could tell it was a close thing. "I thought you was young enough that you didn't remember nothin', but I guess I was wrong. You was old enough to learn all the wrong lessons."

I cleared my throat then, afraid that they might end up fistfighting without my interference, and that wasn't something I wanted to watch go down— not when their fights had taken on a steely edge of seriousness they'd never had in the past.

"Jasmine." Darry's face was smooth like one of the plates in Mom's china cabinet, but the slight flare of his nostrils revealed the emotion lying dormant. He always thought he was so hard to read. "What are you doin' here?"

... Well, Jesus, if that didn't hurt like a stab wound to the stomach, but I'd be damned if I let it show. I put one hand on my hip, gave him an equally defiant glare back. "Got some clothes in my room." _My old room._ "Thought I'd pick them up."

"Rose know where you're at?" he demanded. "I ain't havin' her show up again with the cops in tow, askin' a million questions, like I have the first clue where you go no more."

"You never had the first clue 'bout much." Dammit, I'd really had empathy for my brother, seen the error of my ways, and now that it was time to put my money where my mouth was and humble myself, my mouth snapped right back to its usual. "I can always get back out, what the hell."

" _God_ , you really don't give a damn about this family, you don't ever think about anybody but yourself." I remembered the words from the day I strolled in late for Miz Edwards's visit months ago, how I'd rolled my eyes hearing them— they struck a lot harder now. "You just hopped in Dally's car and took a little joyride with him, huh? Ain't like Ponyboy was already MIA or somethin', ain't like we'd be stuck here worryin' you're dead in a ditch—"

"Might be nice to feel like part of your family for once," I bit out, years of resentment leaking into the phrase. Get a grip, I tried to exhort myself, but I couldn't shake the sense that this might be the last time I'd get to tell him anything. "Not, you know, the maid. Or y'all's second mama. Or the one who shouldn't have been born at all."

"Don't be such a drama queen," Darry said; Soda hovered silently near the wall, either thankful he was out of the hotseat or hesitant to interfere in Darry laying into a younger sibling again. "Of course I want you around—"

"You want me around to do _what_?" I shouted the last word loud enough that my voice cracked on it; if we'd lived in a ritzier area, the neighbors probably would've called in a noise complaint by now. "Wash your dishes, iron your shirts, keep Ponyboy outta trouble? What the hell are you gonna miss, exactly?"

"Well, definitely not your mouth," Darry said, never much of one for sentimentality.

" _Fuck_ you!"

"Excuse me?" He stalked over to me and tilted my chin up— funny, how he only really felt parental towards me after I'd been removed from his custody altogether. "Hell no, you don't get to talk to me like that, little girl. You wanna walk that one back?"

Furious tears stung the back of my eyes, my temper coiled up inside of me like a Jack-in-the-Box about to go off. But the only thing I could think to say was, "Don't call me that. I ain't nobody's little girl no more."

"Well, you're just actin' like you're six years old right now, ain't you?" He tapped his foot against the floor, a menacing staccato. "Cool it, I swear to God—"

"No, I never should've shown up here." Desperate for him not to see me cry, to not break down at what our family had become, I bolted for the door as rapidly as I'd swung in. "Rose don't know I left."

"You get back in here, Jasmine." I reluctantly unfurled my fingers from around the doorknob, an amateur mistake. "You ain't gonna just make some smart comment and flounce off 'cause you ain't gettin' your way for once. I'm sick to death of puttin' up with that shit."

"Go to hell," I said, because I'd never quite had enough sense to quit while I was ahead.

He slapped me on the ass before I could get another word out, the sound like a thunderclap. "I'm not gonna listen to this anymore, you better shut that mouth, I mean it."

Caught between the urge to slap him back and the urge to make a run for it, I burst into tears.

"Man, great job, Darry," came Soda's sardonic drawl, "you smack Pony right into the door, now that he's back, you can move on to the next one, huh?"

"You know, you always got somethin' smart to say about my parenting, don't you, but I don't exactly see you offerin' me no solutions." Darry looked away from Soda to stare me down again. "You gonna watch yourself now?"

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand quickly, swallowed the remaining tears that were fixing to come out. I didn't so much care about what he'd done, Dad would've given me a lot worse and a lot sooner; I just didn't want an audience in the form of Soda, who was examining the patterns on the wallpaper with far more thoroughness than they deserved. "I'm sorry— she showed up at school, said she was gonna take me home with her for good. Me and Dally, we had to floor it pretty fast."

I tensed up as he reached out to hug me, our bodies like two puzzle pieces that didn't fit together, but part of me still appreciated the olive branch. "You really want to stay here?" His breath tickled the hairs coming out of the top of my scalp. "That bad? 'Cause I never quite got the vibe."

"Yeah." I rooted my stance against the ground and exhaled, mostly swayed by the knowledge that no matter how badly I wanted to flee, I would end up following myself anywhere I went. Darry's shirtfront smelled like Dad's old cologne; I pressed my cheek against his chest for a moment before pulling away from him. "I do."

"Okay." Darry knit his hands over his ribcage and stepped back from me, as taciturn as ever, but I understood what he meant. "I want y'all here too. We just... need to get through the rumble first, kick them Socs out of our territory. Then I'll figure out what to do."

"That's still on?"

"You bet it's still on," Soda said, stepping back into the fray. "Got some heads I'm lookin' forward to smashin', Ponyboy too."

"You're still goin' to the rumble?" Darry picked one of Soda's plaid shirts up off the couch. "Ain't that gonna be like Muhammad Ali hittin' up a high school boxin' match?"

"Yeah, what the hell, for old times' sake." Soda grinned at me, the kind of grin I didn't know he still had enough innocence left to give. "We're havin' a rumble all right." He nudged my shoulder with his. "Maybe you can fix us up some sandwiches for when we come back."

* * *

Dallas swept by the house in Buck's T-bird later that night and found me smoking on the porch, more out of anxiety than any real desire for the nicotine. I should've been more surprised than I was when he honked the horn, but he'd already jumped out to approach me before I could subject myself to the indignity of responding to that.

He gave me a long, deep kiss and squeezed my ass— Pony made a retching sound next to him as he climbed out of the passenger seat, showing his age, I guess. Where the hell had he come from? "Dally, what are you doin' here?" I asked, my attention fixed on his wounded arm, Two-Bit's black-handled switch clutched in that hand. This whole scene was like an acid trip. "Why ain't you in the hospital?"

"Staged a prison break." He grinned at me, but it was a hard, brittle grin. "Wasn't about to miss the rumble of the century, not with Shepard ridin' my ass about it."

"Tim came to visit you?"

"Nah, _Luis_." He rolled his eyes. "Said he couldn't believe my mug was in paper without 'wanted dead or alive' written above it. Man, that fuckin' guy. I woulda fought my way outta the hospital with a paperclip after listenin' to him go off on me."

"Did we... win?"

"Yeah, looks it, dragged the kid outta there before I could see the end of things." Though the night air was unusually balmy, he still shivered, his tattered sweatshirt revealing large portions of his upper arms; he'd never looked smaller to me, more confused. "We're gonna go see Johnny, gonna tell him we kicked them Socs' asses straight across the Arkansas."

His entire demeanor reminded me of Soda in the ICU, when he'd clung on to the delusional hope that Mom might snap out of her coma any minute now, like Lazarus rising from the dead. I couldn't acknowledge the thought, I buried it deep in the recesses of my mind before I could say as much out loud.

"Y'all already seen him?"

"Yeah, Pony and Two-Bit already did, his bitch mama even came 'round askin' for a visit, can you believe it?" Dallas spoke in short, clipped syllables, like rounds from a machine gun. "We oughta hurry. C'mon now."

I honestly forget most of the details of how we ended up back at the hospital— some cop had pulled us over on the way, asked why Dallas treated the speed limit as a bare minimum at best, and he'd spun some bullshit story about Ponyboy bleeding out in the backseat, which he'd not only accepted but used as justification to providing us with a police escort to the hospital. I had to hand it to him; he didn't have the Ramirez charm, never would, but he'd learned how to mimic enough of it, and I doubted the speedometer had registered less than ninety the whole time we'd been on the road. "You better let us see him," Dallas demanded when I snapped back into awareness, the hand holding up Two-Bit's switch even shakier than his voice as he held up the doctor in front of Johnny's room. I wanted to scream at him to put that fucking thing down, that there were problems you couldn't solve by brandishing the biggest weapon you had, but my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth. "Or else I swear you'll end up on your own operating table."

"You can see him, but because you're his friends, not because of that knife." The doctor was maddeningly calm; I didn't have enough energy to appreciate that he hadn't called security, or even the fuzz, until we were in the room and I realized that escorting us out would've been the kindness.

"Hey, Johhny," I croaked, and almost vomited— so much of him was covered in ugly, peeling burns, I could neither quite look at him or look away, like watching a crash on the Indy 500. He twitched in response, his body crawling with wires; even the thought of replying to me chafed at him. "They treatin' you okay in here?"

"Yeah, it's been okay." It took an eternity for the words to pass his lips, like the rustle of dead leaves. "My mama— I didn't wanna see her." He sounded unsure and hesitant of the decision, still, though he must've made it hours ago. "Why didn't I see her?"

"We kicked the Socs' asses, Johnnycake." Dallas just barely managed to refrain from talking shit about Mrs. Cade. "You shoulda been there to see it. It was _beautiful_ , man—"

"Don't matter no more," Johnny said, like some kind of holy sage casting down pronouncements. The pit of my stomach froze into icy crystals; he was trying to make his last words count. "None of it— none of this matters no more."

"'Course it matters," Dallas said with a stuttering laugh. "Once you get outta here—"

But Johnny was long past the point where he was capable of entertaining even his hero's delusions, though he did give him a small smile. "Stay gold, Ponyboy... stay gold."

Then his eyes closed. All three of us looked wildly around at each other, not daring to believe what we knew was true, but they didn't open again and Dallas broke out of the stupor first.

"Never could keep that hair back—" He smoothed Johnny's dark bangs across his forehead, covered up the livid scar carved in it. "That's what you get for caring about people, you little punk, that's what you get—" He turned around and slammed his fist into the wall, trembling like he had a sweating sickness, tears falling down his face; I would've tried to reach out and comfort him, but in the rabid state he was in, I was half-afraid he might sink his teeth into my hand. Ponyboy blinked at us both, his face even chalkier than usual, like a consumption victim's. "Dammit, Johnny, don't die, please don't die—"

So even Dallas had a breaking point. His eyes roamed around the room again and then hung back in their sockets, seeking some desperate sort of relief, but there was nothing in front of him except a corpse. "Please," he said again, and the word echoed down the sterile hall and hit him right back in the face. "Please, God, please—"

Looking back, I wish I would've said something. 'I love you', maybe. At least 'goodbye?' But he sprinted out of there, and I had no idea that was the last time I would see him alive— my attention was entirely focused on Johnny. He looked younger, in death. Far more at peace than he had ever been in life.

* * *

Dallas took the car with him, we quickly discovered— I didn't have enough emotional energy left to worry about the safety of his driving. Pony was all for wandering into the parking lot and sticking his thumb out until we caught someone's eye, but my care-taking instinct managed to override the numb exhaustion that had crashed into me like concrete. "You're bleedin'," I said, swiping my thumb through the deep wound in his forehead and cringing when the blood leaked through my fingers, "c'mon, we'll go to the nurses' station. They'll call us a cab."

"We ain't got no money—"

My laugh sounded strange and distorted; when I fanned my hand out in front of me, the patterns of dark blood against the tan skin blurred together, seemed to float onto the walls. "Johhny oughta get us the sympathy vote, don't you think?"

Turned out, he did. I wish I could say the tears welling up in my eyes were just good acting.

"Dad didn't look that—" I barely remembered how Pony and I had ended up bundled into the backseat of the cab at all, drunk off of sheer exhaustion, slumped against the vinyl seats. God, couldn't he stop talking for a minute? "Dad didn't look like that, did he?"

I'd gone with Darry to the morgue, to identify the bodies, he hadn't. He hadn't looked like much of anything, after the eighteen-wheeler got through with him.

I scrabbled around in my purse, sifting through the detritus of old crumbs and tissues and lip gloss caps, until I dug up a Valium tablet. "Here." I shoved it into his clammy palm, traced it down the heart line. "Don't ask what it is, just take it. And be quiet."

"You oughta come home." He put his hand over mine, though he was staring out the window, his eyes glassy and far-away as he dry-swallowed the pill. "Everyone's gonna be there, after the rumble... you shouldn't be by yourself. With _her_."

 _I don't want to tell them myself_ , was the underlying subtext. "It ain't my home anymore, not accordin' to the law." I ran my hand up and down the seatbelt I hadn't bothered to fasten; I didn't remember half the time, cruising around in Dally's suger-laden truck, and he'd never pressed the issue. "I'll be fine."

"Ain't nobody's home 'cept Darry's, is it, if we're usin' the state's definition?" His voice was as bitter as the hemlock that had killed Socrates. "You don't belong no less just 'cause you're a girl, you know."

"Rose is gonna be wonderin' where I am." I leaned forward, tapped the cab driver (who'd been assiduously avoiding commenting on our situation) on the shoulder. "We ain't goin' to the same place, you gotta drop me off on the West Side."

I'd been alone through so much, what was the difference now?

"Where the _hell_ have you been?" She was even tapping her foot on the floor as I crept inside, her arms folded under her ample breasts— I wanted to tell her to give it up, that she wasn't nearly old enough to have half the intimidation factor of my mama (who was scary enough to make Dallas mind), but lost my nerve halfway through. I leaned against the wall, my legs buckling under me. "Do I have to tie you to your bed at night? Never let you outta my sight? Is that what it's gonna take, at this point?"

"Johnny died— my friend, Johnny, he died," I said numbly, like saying it over and over again would cement the truth of the words in my mind. "The burns were too bad, he didn't make it."

He'd wanted to die, hadn't he? Wasn't that what he'd always fucking wanted? So why did I feel so sick to my stomach?

"Oh, baby." She pulled me into her chest, but before I could hope to relax into it, she'd extracted herself and poured me a glass of whiskey. Not the cheap stuff my daddy drank, either, Tennessee Honey, at least six dollars a bottle. I knocked back half of it before she could change her mind and take it away from me. "It's that kind of night, huh?"

It sure was. I finished the glass and looked her straight in the eye as I poured myself another one. She didn't even twitch before she poured her own. Then she pulled out the bourbon.

Angela showed up— it wasn't that much later, maybe an hour, it just felt like it because of how stupid fucking drunk I was. I hadn't been this hammered since the night I'd shot Joe; I didn't know what had gotten into Rose, maybe some of her animal cunning had figured out that alcohol might be the way to my heart, but I wasn't about to turn down the opportunity to forget before she changed her mind. "Jasmine... Jasmine, get up." She was shaking my shoulder roughly, when my eyes snapped open, the lights in the living room were dim and I had a crick in my neck from having fallen asleep on the couch. Rose was nowhere to be found, had probably long since retired to her own bed; in the sleepy half-second upon awakening, when you'd forgotten all the terrible things that had happened to you, I was irritated that she'd left me like this.

"What is it?" I sat up too fast and rubbed my eye with my knuckle; I feared I might be sick all over the floor, but I just barely managed to get a hold of the contents of my stomach. "Angel, this ain't such a good time—"

She threw herself, sobbing, into my chest— inexplicably, ridiculously, I thought her dripping eyeliner was going to ruin my white top. I patted her on the back with an awkward, mechanical rhythm, her arms so tight around my neck that I choked under their weight. "What happened? Fuck, Angel, what happened?" I tried to mimic concern. In reality, my muscles were so weak and my mind was so gone, I had a hard time realizing that she was there at all.

"It... it wasn't loaded, the heater. They still shot him anyway, God, nobody could do nothin' before it was too late."

"Who are they? Who did they shoot?" I demanded with the awareness of someone who'd had a bucket of ice water poured all over them, though I already knew. Of course I knew.

"He just... I heard it from Ponyboy." She trembled against me. "Dallas— he stuck up a convenience store— when the fuzz caught up to him— they didn't wanna ask no questions, you know? Not some dirty hood from our side of town."

When I still blinked at her, uncomprehending, she spelled it out for me. "Dally's dead."

* * *

I was thirteen when JFK was shot— we fell over each other crowding around the television set, Walter Cronkite's eyes watering as he announced the assassination, how his head was blown clean off. Later came the iconic photograph of Jackie Kennedy, still drenched in her husband's blood, as Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One. She did not cry.

I thought I could understand her now.


	38. The Only Living Boy in New York

I'm not sure if this one took a while because I had to finish the semester or because I couldn't bear to kill Dallas, but... it's finally done, and I'm hoping to complete this fic before the two-year mark :)

* * *

 _Dally's dead._

Angela was still crying, clutching my neck in a stranglehold; I laughed like a maniac, in short, gasping bursts, because none of this was real. I'd wake up soon. I was used to her appearing and vanishing like a shade, like a vision, I'd wake up and she'd be gone and her words would just be a figment of my fevered imagination. "He can't be dead," I tried to explain to her, her perfume crawling up my nostrils and taking up permanent residence there. I couldn't handle the corporeality of her body up against mine, blood and flesh and sinew hardening the edges of my dream world. "I just saw him. He wasn't dead, was he?"

She gulped and gave up crying as she broke apart from me; when she spoke, she sounded more like a kindergarten teacher attempting to be soothing than a hysterical teenage girl. "Jas, I saw it myself, Christ, they pumped him full of lead. He's dead as a doornail."

I imagined she might've still been half in love with him, the stupid girl, hearing the longing in her throaty voice for a... dead man. The weight of that thought hit me like a cannonball had landed in my lap; I stumbled backwards and sat down on the couch again, my balance badly distorted by all the booze I'd chugged, pinned in place. That stubborn fucking sonuvabitch— of course he would never stoop low enough to actually kill himself, too proud to admit defeat or weakness like that. He'd just keep driving his car without the brakes, mainlining dope, raising an empty heater at the cops, until—

He'd loved Johnny enough to die for him, but he hadn't loved me enough to smile for me, or laugh for me, or cry for me, or live for me. I just wasn't quite enough, in the end.

"Someone needs to tell his daddy." That thought, in the place of any others, entered my mind, and I didn't even know what in the name of God had put it there— maybe I just wanted to get away from Angela's tears, her open, devastated face. Maybe I just wanted to keep moving, like a kid who'd banged their knee against the bedframe, engaging every muscle so as not to feel the pain of slowing down.

"What?"

"His daddy— _Norm_ ," I said slowly. I didn't want to use that word, it tasted wrong on my tongue, like taking a bite out of rancid meat— but in some twisted biological sense, it still applied. "That he died. He oughta know, shouldn't he?"

"When my daddy died—" She rubbed the tops of her arms vigorously, but it didn't make the goosebumps in her skin sink back down. "I dunno, I don't remember nothin', just that my mama was cryin'."

I remembered death, the realization that human bodies were only flesh and blood, but I couldn't apply that same memory to Dallas, no matter how hard I tried; I'd never quite seen him as mortal, that was the trouble. I hadn't ever thought he was capable of breaking down and decomposing, my mechanical boy, until he'd finally flown apart.

"You can't go out by your lonesome to that part of town, it's two in the morning," Angela tried to tell me as I grabbed the wrinkled cardigan I'd thrown onto the floor, but her voice was like a swarm of gnats around my head, something to bat away and disregard. Mascara was smeared across her face in ugly dark streaks; when she wiped her nose, she got some of it on the bridge, too. "Jesus, he just got shot, who the fuck cares what his bum-ass daddy thinks about it—"

I laughed again, hard enough to clutch my sides from the force of the rictus, and stumbled over to the door. "He should care, though. He really should."

She didn't offer to come with me. When it was a woman, Angela recognized a fool's errand when she saw one.

* * *

I barely remembered the look of the house from the time Dallas had driven me over here; I wandered the streets for what felt like hours, helpless and stumbling and drunk off of both grief and fear. I couldn't go home, though, I didn't have a home to go back to anymore. I didn't have anywhere to put this down.

 _If you ever loved me, then watch over me,_ I pleaded with the shade of Dallas that hovered around the edges of my mind, before I could even accept the truth with my consciousness. _You lowdown fucking sack of shit. Watch over me, just this once._ I clutched the class ring he'd rolled a drunk senior for between my fingers, looked up at the sky for succor.

 _Sure I will,_ he said, _didn't I promise I'd always look after you?_ But all I could see was his face crumpled in grief, the tears mingling with sweat and dirt, finally defeated, and then I pictured his bullet-ridden corpse, and I bent over vomiting onto the concrete. I had a powerful headache pounding against the left side of my skull, I wasn't even sure if it was from the booze or the stress of the past few days.

How could I go on, how could I possibly take it, when the strongest person I knew had snapped? Why couldn't I just throw myself in front of a passing car and be done with it? Hadn't he given me tacit permission?

That preoccupied me until I reached the right house and banged my fist against the door; after a few moments, Norm stalked over to it and jerked it open, red marks on his cheeks from his pillowcase. He was as repulsive as I'd remembered him, as thoroughly gone to seed; he clutched the doorframe just to keep himself upright long enough to address me. "The fuck are you doin' here? Your kind don't sleep at night like regular folk?"

"It's Dallas." I tried to look anywhere but at his face, avoid noticing the genetic resemblance. "Somethin' happened."

"Oh, he mess around on you, sweetheart?" He gave me a grin full of broken teeth. "Havin' a broad for more than a month, think that's a record for him, so go pat yourself on the back— that's one hell of a pussy you're totin'. But I dunno what kind of lesson you want me to school him 'bout it."

I cursed whatever crazy impulse had brought me here, my forehead slick with sweat, though the wind chilled my arms through my thin cardigan. "He's dead."

"... What?"

"He's dead," I repeated, though I'd told myself so many times the words had lost all meaning to me. "Dally, he's dead, he got shot by the fuzz— you need to go to the morgue. Decide what to do with the body."

He paused only long enough for me to exhale on the last syllable. "I ain't payin' for nothin'."

Though I'd hoped for little, expected even less, I really thought I'd misheard him. "You ain't— you ain't payin'—"

"That's what you want, ain't it, that's what you came here for? To get cash for a headstone, not to make me feel guilty." He spit a wad of chew out onto the rickety boards. "I ain't really his— he never called me Dad, not even when he was a kid. We didn't get on. Shit, with the amount his mama was sleepin' around, I dunno if he's even mine."

Anger crouched down low in me, waited for the right moment to strike. "... You don't even know who I am."

"Yeah, I know you two robbed me stone blind—"

I flew at him and scratched a long line across his forehead, so many cusses leaving my mouth I could barely separate them from each other. "You don't even know who I am!" I clawed at every available inch of skin I could reach— he was too startled by the sudden attack to repel me at first. "He grew up with me, he grew up in my daddy's house, he spent every day with us and you didn't even notice he was _missing_ , you sick fucking sack of shit—"

"Crazy bitch," he snarled, and finally flung me off with a vicious backhand to my left eye; I stumbled, smacking my head against a picture frame on the wall. There was an old, black-and-white photograph of a blonde woman, with a long, thin face and an elfish turn to her nose— Dally's mother, the second family member he'd outlived? "You get outta here. Get the fuck outta here before I give you more where that came from."

"You're right." My breath came like I was being stabbed in the chest with every inhale, my hand came back dark with blood when I touched the side of my head. I felt like a wolf, a feral thing. "You ain't his daddy. You ain't shit."

In a movie, this would've been the part where he collapsed into heaving sobs, overcome with grief at the loss of his son. But instead he just slammed the door in my face, and I was the one who sank to my knees.

* * *

 _"I don't have any goddamn money, okay?"_

 _"What do you mean, you don't— what'd you do with it, get a hooker? Lose it playin' blackjack?" A harsh, alcohol-soaked laugh rent the air. "It's fine for you, you can squat with these people, but where the hell you think I'm gonna sleep if that rent check bounces? The street, that's where."_

 _"You ever considered gettin' a fucking job?" Dallas's voice had lost its hard edge of defiance; despite the flippant words, he sounded like he was trying to appease a rampaging zoo animal. "Sellin' your own product? Don't bullshit me, the only thing you're gonna buy if I give you a Yankee dime is more smack—"_

 _A hard blow, Dallas's dizzy cusses, more indignant than angry, and Dad threw down his suite of cards— I didn't know why he was trying to teach me to play poker, I could always see every emotion on his face. "Stay here," he told me, but when I followed him out the door, he didn't say it twice._

 _"The fuck are you doin' here." It wasn't a question. The last time I'd heard him sound like vodka out of the fridge, he'd been talking to a junkie trying to grab at Mom, right before he snapped his wrist backwards. "You think I'm just gonna let you beat the hell outta your fifteen-year-old son on my porch?"_

 _It had taken me that long to realize that the man was Dallas's father, not one of his shadier clients, that he hadn't spontaneously generated out of the ground or something— but when I looked closer, they shared the same mulish set to their jaws, the same pronounced brow. "What's it to you?" he asked, slow and condescending. Someone could be the lowest kind of white trash there was, and that type of guy would still think they were better than my daddy, above having to answer to him. "I'm collectin' the cash he owes me, is all. Ain't my fault he has to do it the knuckle-dustin' way."_

 _"It's fine," Dallas said, but his eyes were strangely wide. The mark where he'd been slapped seemed to glow beneath the lamp, a fire under his pale skin. "Just— I can handle this." He cocked a shaky, unsure fist; Norm tried to get into a boxer's stance and nearly fell off the deck. "If it's a fight he wants, what the hell—"_

 _"You don't have to handle nothin'." His jaw set. "I've been meanin' to talk to him for a while anyway."_

 _"Dad—"_

 _He wasn't looking at the drunk guy on the porch._

 _"Dally, honey, go back inside, okay?" The tone wasn't one you argued with, but the 'honey' softened his words considerably. "I'll just be a minute, this shouldn't take long."_

 _And for about the first time in his life, with a brief, sidelong glance at the building scene, Dallas turned tail and ran back inside. I did too, but hovered near the frame, didn't want to miss the show._

 _"You wanna go that bad, I'm a grown man, I can take it." Satisfaction unfurled in the sentence. "But leave the kid the fuck alone. He didn't do nothin' wrong 'cept get squirted out of you."_

 _Norm laughed again, incredulity leaching through. "Only use anyone ever got out of that kid was that guard who—"_

 _He never finished the sentence, because I heard the unmistakable crunch of a nose breaking and turned to run into Darry's room. Dallas was sitting on the floor, his back against the dresser, his knees held to his chest. He didn't look up at me._

 _"Does it hurt?"_

 _"It's fine," he said sharply, too sharply, his cheeks bright. "I could've taken him, it ain't the first time. I didn't need anyone's help. Ain't my fault your daddy—"_

 _"Does he hit you a lot?" I'd never thought of him as a boy my brothers' age before, with feelings that were capable of being hurt. Maybe that was my biggest mistake, when it came to him._

 _"Often enough." His jaw hardened, he still wouldn't look at me; he was digging his blunt nails into his upper arms, hard enough to leave marks as he gingerly withdrew them. "I can hit him back, though, you better not think I'm gettin' slapped around like Johnny does— he knows he shouldn't fuck with me."_

 _"Dally, you can't go back there, you can't live with him—"_

 _"We ain't doin' this." His eyes were glossy, I thought, but he blinked again and it was gone; maybe it had only been a trick of the light. "No, we ain't gonna do this. I can handle him, I don't need you feelin' sorry for me, princess."_

 _Somehow, even at that self-absorbed age, I recognized that his lashing out was like a wounded animal biting those who were kind to him. I sat down beside him and brushed my hand against his. He waited a moment before pulling it away._

* * *

"Jasmine."

When I saw the headlights of the truck, I thought it was the end, that it'd run me over in my stupefied state, that I was staring at a pedophile like a stunned deer, anything. I wouldn't have protested. Instead, it pulled over sharply at the curb, and Darry jumped out.

"Where you been, Jesus Christ?" He clutched me by the shoulders and gave me a hard shake, but I was too drunk and sedated to gain any sense from it. "Can't you ever stay in one goddamn place long enough for anyone to keep track of you? It's the middle of the night—"

"Dally's dead," I said like that explained everything, and to me, it did. "His daddy don't give a damn."

He sighed and led me into the truck with a hand against the small of my back. "Honey, you really expect him to?" His eyes looked hollow and dark-rimmed, like he'd been crying, but that couldn't be right. "You're dead _drunk_. Where'd I go so wrong with you, huh?"

"You didn't," I tried to reassure him, in the midst of all this madness, it wasn't him, not my daddy either... maybe it had been lying stagnant inside of me all my life, like Uncle Gene's, just waiting for the right trigger to go off. I didn't want to blame him, I felt too old for that all of a sudden, blaming him would only hurt me worse. If I closed my eyes, I was dizzy enough that none of this was real, anyway. "You didn't."

He scoffed a little in the back of his throat and put his hands on the wheel, ten and two, the way Dad had taught him— but he near slumped over it and I wondered what the fuck what was wrong with me. He'd been my boyfriend. I'd loved him, he'd loved me— Darry had loathed him at times, for dating me, for being more my father's son than any of his biological ones. And all I felt was a fierce, nagging anger, digging at my insides like a shovel. I couldn't cry. The action didn't even occur to me.

We approached home in tense silence, waiting to pounce; he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand before we went in, turned away so I wouldn't see. There were too many thoughts, that was the trouble, too many thoughts at once and all of them very bad. I pressed one side of my head against the window and I thought about my last words to my mama before she died. I pressed the other side to the window and I thought about Dallas's body frozen in the morgue, unremarked and uncollected. I pressed my forehead to the window and thought about his lips against my skin, corroding me down to the bone. I'd never wanted to get off.


	39. A Legal Matter

Anyone still reading? I've been struggling with how to end this story— yes, we're _finally_ getting there— and wrestling with perfectionism as I keep editing... and editing... and writing literally anything that isn't this... but I have to press post sometime. Gotta thank **metacognitive** for giving me the kick in the ass I needed ;) and I promise next chapter is gonna be when shit hits the fan.

* * *

A sharp, persistent rap startled me out of my uneasy sleep; I swung my legs over the side of the couch and immediately had to clutch its arm, my vision flooded with static and a powerful ache pulsing against the left side of my head, and I forgot that Dallas and Johnny were dead for as long as it took to get my equilibrium back. I flung the door open in my bare feet, my hair so tangled I couldn't even run a hand through it.

"Honey," Luis drawled, one hand on his heater, "you really don't look so hot."

I wasn't wearing a lick of makeup, I had a massive zit forming on my chin, and I sure as shit wasn't in the mood to act cute with him today. "My brother's sick, he's in bed," I said shortly. "This ain't a good time."

"Oh, I think it's a great time." He held the door open before I could slam it shut, pretend he'd never been there at all. "Heard you been talkin' to the fuzz, princess. You're lucky I ain't Alberto, ain't about to slit your throat for it without askin' questions first."

I let out a weak laugh; I couldn't bring myself to feel afraid when I was on my own turf and my brothers were a holler away, even if he was strapped. "I didn't talk Ramirez business, don't worry. It ain't got nothin' to do with you."

"You poor, stupid lil'— you know half the cops in this city are on some gangbanger's payroll, right? That one's on mine. _Everythin'_ that happens on these streets is my business."

I... hadn't known that, no. And God, if he didn't register the shock on my face, before I could say a word in my own defense. "I should kill you," he said calmly, "you're too dangerous to leave alive, but I ain't never killed a woman before... and you ain't no woman."

"You should've helped me." That was what it all came down to, in the end. "You should've helped me when I _begged_ you to, so I wouldn't have to hit up five-o for protection—"

For once, he gave me a look of greater sympathy than condescension or pity. "Even when one shot your lil' boyfriend dead? You still want to work with them?"

Anger bubbled out of me like hot oil from a pan, still an easier emotion to reach for than sadness or pain when I remembered his death. "His body ain't even cold." I sounded like I was biting down on a fork. "Don't make me tell you what he did to deserve it."

"Oh, baby, I'm just fucking with you." He brushed his piece with his fingertips like a mother would brush her baby's head. "I didn't show up here to give you no lecture. I'm gonna talk to my boys on the inside, scratch their backs if they'll scratch mine."

"Why are you doin' this?" I wasn't naive enough to believe that he did anything out of the goodness of his heart, not when he'd taken my plea for assistance and pissed all over it. He didn't give a damn about Soda— though sometimes I had my doubts, I didn't think he even gave much of a damn about me. "You hate the fuzz, you don't want a rep for snitching—"

" _Hijo de la chingada_ was fuckin' my niece, you know what, death ain't good enough for him— I wanna burn that lil' dope den he calls an outfit to the ground and piss on his old streets while he's stuck in a six by eight. If Officer Friendly gets a medal from the police commissioner for it, well, I can live with that."

"... Good." I made patterns in the dust with my big toe. "He was havin' his way with her, he deserves to suffer for it."

His usually taut features softened as he scanned me; I felt more naked than I ever had under Dallas's hands. "Anyone have their way with you before?"

The question made the edges of my vision blur, I had to step back and clutch the railing, deep enough to embed a splinter in my palm. "The hell would you ask that for?" I demanded, hoping my prissy attitude would make him drop the subject. This, from a man who'd squeezed my ass the first time I'd spoken to him over the age of ten. "What's _wrong_ with you?"

"Girls who act like you— you ain't so hard to read." He lit up a smoke; the sudden, acrid smell of it made my mouth fill with saliva, I wanted to vomit, and equally wanted to ask to bum one. "That gringo, the one who had you against the wall... did he do it? I guessed as much."

My palm still pressed into the wood hard enough to leave imprints in my skin, I managed to nod.

"I'm sorry." The worst part was, he meant it, a man who'd told me a minute ago that I'd be better off dead. "But if you tell that nice, nice officer, he's gonna ask how much you were drinking. If you was wearing a short skirt. If you led him on—"

"Shut up." It was far from wise to talk to him like that; I didn't give a fuck. I clutched my forehead with two fingers, as though that could will me to no longer hear his words. "Just... shut up for a minute, Lord, don't tell me what I already know."

"If you told your brothers... your daddy raised them right. They'd take care of him."

"Told her brothers what?" Darry came up behind us, his eyes narrowed into slits by suspicion and the rising sun.

"That I'm real torn up 'bout what happened to Dally." Luis almost sounded like one of the cops that had come to announce our parents' deaths, all he was missing was a hat pressed against his chest. "He was a good kid, he didn't deserve to go so young."

They'd put flowers around the fountain where Bob was killed. Would anyone set up shrines for Dallas?

Darry was too sharp to buy the act, though, walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "How do you know my sister?"

My breath froze like a lump of ice halfway up my throat; Luis sucked his teeth. "Y'all's daddy used to tuck her in under her princess sheets every night, 'fore he got down to business."

"Don't fuck with me."

"Don't get cocky." He clutched his piece harder; I flinched, though I should've realized he wasn't about to blow him to kingdom come in broad daylight. "Not when I'm 'bout to get your brother out of the Tigers."

"... What?"

"I owe your daddy. He took a long term for me." I couldn't bring myself to open my mouth and contradict him. "Don't read into it no more," he raised his hand up in order to prevent that outcome. "I repay my debts, is all. Lettin' him walk wasn't enough."

He twirled on his heel and stalked off after that, whistling an old Tito Puente song, and Darry immediately turned to me. "Jasmine, how do you know him?" he insisted, his fingers digging into my left shoulderblade. "He ain't a good man. He ain't—"

 _I've met a lot worse,_ I wanted to say, but I didn't end up saying anything. Somehow, in the past few days, I'd lost an ability I'd honed to perfection over the course of months: being able to lie to my brother.

"Just..." He looked down at the scuffed boots he'd slipped on, at the equally-scuffed boards on the porch. This whole house really had gone to shit. "Please just tell me that whatever it was, it died with Dally."

Like an automaton, I gave him a mechanical jerk of my head, which should've told him everything he needed to know.

* * *

"You cuttin' class?"

"Cut so many at this point, they might just make me repeat a grade like Curly." Angela waved the cigarette in her hand like she couldn't care less, and she probably couldn't; I doubted her mother or stepfather would even notice, and for all of Tim's blustering, he was a high school dropout himself. "Didn't think you'd be here. Ponyboy ain't."

I shrugged and sat down next to her on the bleachers. "Needed to get out of that place. Reminds me too much of when my parents died."

Angela finished the stub she'd been working down to the filter, used it to light another one in her hand. "I keep waitin' for him to show up, mouth off to Tim again."

"I shouldn't be surprised." He'd died young and violent and desperate, the way I'd always known he'd die, in a part of my consciousness that was beyond denial or wishful thinking. I'd just thought he'd at least go out with a bang, something more romantic than waving an empty heater around like a red flag to a bull.

"People are sayin' Dallas was in love with that Cade kid, Johnny— that he couldn't live without him. Some kind of Romeo and Juliet shit."

"Hell, he probably was," I said in a voice that was all sigh. Certainly more than he'd ever felt for me; Johnny had been the ideal object for it, passive and yielding and receptive. Then I couldn't resist asking the question that had been gnawing at me for months now— "were you?"

She breathed some smoke out in lazy wisps. "Was I _what_?"

"In love with him."

"Don't be like that, Christ hell, fightin' me over a dead guy." She picked a splinter out of the rickety bleachers. "I'm not Sylvia Jordan. I never tried to steal him away from you."

"I _know_ , I ain't accusin' you of nothin'." Lord, could her defensiveness get on my nerves, though I was well-aware that the pot was calling the kettle black there. "I just—"

"Yeah, maybe I was, sue me." She hissed as she burned her fingertip on the cigarette she'd been ignoring, the mark pink and shining on her skin. "My uncles, my brothers, my stepdaddy, they always talked to me like I was a dog, you know— 'get me a drink, Angel', 'shut up and fix me supper, Angel', 'quit stickin' your nose in men's business, Angel'... Dally didn't treat me so bad. I mean, he was just tryna get under Tim's skin, but he didn't treat me so bad." She looked up at me through some curls that had fallen into her face. "I thought he might— I dunno, _marry_ me, does that sound crazy? Get me outta that house for good."

"You don't need a man to save you like Prince Charming rescuin' Cinderella," I tried to tell her, "you could finish high school, get a job—" The words caught in my throat like I'd swallowed a cotton ball. A girl couldn't so much as rent an apartment on her own; she was right, though I was loath to admit it.

She went on as though I hadn't said anything. "I'm gonna leave anyway." Her dark eyes gleamed sharp and metallic, like she had two chunks of obsidian embedded in her face. "Trust me, I'm not fixin' to end up how my mama did, stuck here in Tulsa my whole life. Soon as I find the right guy, I'll be outta here like a bat outta hell."

I'd thought the same about my own mama, watching her with her hair up in rag curls, laundering grass-stained jeans, washing endless loads of dishes in the background— maybe it was a universal experience for girls, maybe Angela and I just had a screw loose. Later, I'd find it pretty funny that for all her tough talk, the biggest she could manage to dream was getting hitched to a slightly wilder man.

"We never talk just because," she said. "We talk business. So what do you want?"

Was there anything holding the two of us together, without Dallas? I barely felt like there was still anything holding _me_ together. "Luis is goin' to the fuzz. He wants to cut a deal with them, give them information to bring the Kings down."

"You expect me to believe my uncle's goin' along with your lil' idea to snitch?" She snorted. "Come up with a better lie next time."

"You should talk to them too."

She shot me a mean curl of a smirk. "You first."

"Rape is illegal, prostitution is illegal—"

"If you're a West Side girl." She slapped me, but it was a light sort of slap; she pinched the apple of my cheek on the way out, catching some of my blush. "Why don't you close your eyes and imagine tellin' _a jury of my peers_ this shit. All they're gonna see is spic." She glared at me coldly, like the past few months had never happened. "Get outta here, Curtis. We don't need nothin' from each other no more, right? Just get outta here."

* * *

I had Sylvia's head in my lap when I first met my uncle. "I'm not gonna cry, I don't give a shit," she said, all choked as she did. "We all knew he was gonna go out that way sooner or later, didn't we? We all knew he wasn't fixin' to make it to a ripe old age."

To that, I didn't have a lot to say, especially not when she did start crying into my skirt. Everyone was bawling their eyes out, except me— Pony probably would've remarked on it, if he wasn't lost in his dream world down the hall, and Soda was God knows where at this point. I just stroked her hair, like she'd really loved him.

When the front door swung open, my kneejerk reaction was to wonder where the hell Dad's gun was, then I remembered: in police custody. Then I also remembered that we left it unlocked, _because we don't have nothin' to steal_. Might've not been the wisest idea. "Is this a bad time?" the man asked, the picture of cordiality, but I didn't trust the harsh lines around his mouth, or the expensive watch on his wrist. Nobody had ever shown up to my place in a three-piece suit before. His eyes darted between me and Sylvia, landed back on me again. "Are you Jasmine? Jasmine Curtis?"

"Reporters ain't allowed in the house," I said tiredly, my fingers stalling. "My brother's real sick, he don't want visitors, either—"

He shook his head like a dog trying to get a burr off its neck. "I ain't a reporter. I'm... well, your uncle, I guess, your uncle Sven."

Funnily enough, Rose had never shown me a photograph of him, but I should've recognized him anyway, the spitting image of their son— they had the same firm jaw, ice blue eyes, and blond hair like a mat of straw. My mother's constant drilling into my head about manners kicked in, at this of all times; I stuck my hand out to shake, but he just stared at it, finally settling on giving me a perfunctory sort of hug. "I should've called," he said as soon as he disengaged. "Are you... busy?"

"My brother's real sick," I said again, shifting Sylvia off of my lap; she blearily blinked at him, like she'd just been woken up from a long slumber. "We got a lot goin' on."

"I'm afraid this can't wait." He obviously meant to sound apologetic, but I noticed the pointed way he checked his Rolex as he said it. "Is anyone else home? Can we talk?"

"Sylvia, you gonna be okay?"

"Yeah." She wiped her eyes with her sleeve— the mascara would probably never come out of the white fabric of her blouse— and sniffed. "What's goin'—"

I waved her off, and she got the hint, booked it out the door. He grasped my arm, led me over to the kitchen table. "... You want something to drink?"

"Okay," I said, expecting a glass of water, and more than a little surprised when he pulled out a bottle of scotch from his briefcase— an expensive one, too, judging by the label.

"I'm gonna do you a favor and treat you like an adult right now." He leaned forward on his elbows, close enough that I could smell his cologne. "When I go back to Lubbock, I ain't takin' either of you with me. Rose... Christ, that broad's fucked in the head." He took a pinched-lipped sip of whiskey. "Sorry. I don't usually swear in front of ladies."

A smile flitted across my face, for the first time since Dallas's death. "I've used worse before."

"You would've, huh?" He drummed his fingers against the table, full of nervous energy. "I thought I could save her or somethin', from that part of town she was stuck in— like in _Pygmalion_ , Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins? Awh, hell, you wouldn't."

I took a burning gulp, enough to make my eyes water, in lieu of a reply.

"She was this real pretty, fierce lil' thing, but I should've known I couldn't tame her." He chuckled. "She's not right upstairs, probably came by it honest from her schizo mother— she's been on the ward twice, she ever tell you that?"

"No, sir."

"Then she wonders why I won't let her be around my boy anymore— 'cause last time she was convinced he had some kind of disease, made him drink ipecac to throw it back up." He filled my glass up to the rim again; a warm fizziness pooled in my fingers and toes, and suddenly I had to struggle to stay awake. "I should put her back in Bedlam and be done with it— I'm her husband, all it takes is my signature to keep her there— but I'll settle for a divorce, at this point. That's how it's gonna be."

I crossed my legs at the ankle. "I never wanted to go anywhere in the first place, so that's good news."

"Your daddy didn't want a thing to do with her after he skipped town, I don't know why she got on you like a leech. He wasn't even her real brother, just a half." He touched my knee, his fingers cold like he was wearing latex gloves. "You wouldn't have fit in on our side of town, anyway. They even let you into country clubs?"

A memory flitted to the front of my mind from some dusty corner of it, just after my daddy had gotten out of prison— him and Darry out on the porch, bickering more like brothers than father and son, as was their wont. _You want me to take Jasmine to a dance at Central? Honey, they don't let people like me past the front door unless we're holdin' a tray. You're lucky they even let_ _you_ _in, sportin' a tan that dark._

"No, sir," I said through gritted teeth. "There's going to be a trial, soon enough. About our custody." I swallowed, washed down the stickiness in my throat with another gulp of whiskey. "You fixin' to say all this in front of a judge? That Darry's a good guardian?"

"Shoot, honey, I don't really give a damn if he is or isn't." He quaffed the last few drops from the bottle. "So long's he keeps you outta my hair, I'll swear on the Bible he could teach Ward Cleaver some lessons."

* * *

I expected Rose would explode like a glass window when an atomic bomb went off, was anticipating her presence all of that evening, even— she'd been remarkably tolerant of me sleeping at my actual home, these past few days, but I knew that couldn't last, considering the events of these past few hours. When she finally rolled up at our door, my primary emotion was relief, the same kind a condemned man feels when his executioner shows up.

"The hell are you doing here?" Darry snapped when he found her swaying on our porch. "Jasmine's boyfriend died, Jesus, Ponyboy's real sick. I don't have time for this right now. Just let her stay where she belongs."

She was drunk. By this point in my life, I could tell a drunk person from a thousand yards away, recognize all their movements and statements too. "I'm out of my pills." She turned to me like she was expecting them to materialize right in front of her. "The lil' yellow ones. What'd you do with them?"

"I never touched them, _Jesus_." I wasn't as bold as Angela, either to steal from my own family or assume she wouldn't notice the dwindling supply— and if I wanted my own, I would've asked Dallas for them. "Go look through your own cabinets."

"Why would _Jasmine_ have your pills?" Darry wrinkled his forehead up like a washing board.

She looked like a reject Titian painting, her slip coming off one shoulder, her eyes wild like a dog off its chain. For the first time since I'd met her, I was genuinely afraid of her, of what might come out of her mouth next, but that fear rooted my feet to the floor and kept me from running.

"She's been sellin' drugs, ain't you figured it out by now?" Rose tilted her head to the side, and when nobody said anything, let out a long, sputtering laugh to fill the silence. "She and her boyfriend and that spic girl she's friends with, they were running all over the city with marijuana and amphetamines and downers and God only knows what else." Like she hadn't just imploded my entire double life with two well-aimed sentences, she stumbled forward, her hands open. "You think she wouldn't steal some Valium too?"

I fixated on how much I wanted to smack her across that messily-lipsticked mouth for calling Angela a spic. It would be so easy, to hit her, grab her arm, do things I never would've dared to do with my own mother. If I looked at Darry, I was lost.

"Dally got us enough product himself," I said unwisely, unsteady, uncaring anymore. "I don't need your pills on top of that."


	40. Confessional

... I've had a lot of this chapter written for a long time. I've had the majority of a completed draft saved here for weeks. And I didn't publish because _I could not figure out how to execute the fucking graveyard scene with enough poignancy._ But at this point, when I'm getting encouraging anon reviewers telling me I've come too far to give up, I think I just need to press the damn post button. (Don't worry. No matter how much I've wrung my hands over this fic, 150k in, the only thing that's gonna stop me is my death.)

* * *

 _It was a long, hot summer of '63; my room felt like a furnace, my open window doing nothing but funneling more humid air inside. Even if we'd had indoor AC (my dream, and one we'd never have enough money for), the shooting pain in my arms and legs made it impossible to sleep that night, causing me to toss around under heavy, sticky sheets. Growing pains, Mom called them, saying they'd pass eventually. I closed my eyes and imagined being stretched out on a rack in the Middle Ages._

 _As I drifted into an exhausted haze, I heard voices come in from the porch; snapping back into awareness, I realized it was Dad and Darry. And nothing was going to stop me from creeping over to the window after I heard Dad sigh, "if you're tryna punish me, son, can't say you ain't doin' a great job."_

 _Darry's laugh sounded as rickety as a chair on three legs, even when it floated all the way over to me. If I'd really pushed myself, I might've even said it sounded deranged. "I didn't do nothin' you wouldn't approve of, Daddy, keep your shirt on," he said harshly, in a tone too much cheap whiskey was responsible for. "Gettin' a lil' boozed up, wasn't that your MO back in the day? You're lucky I stopped there."_

" _You're a man now, God fuckin' help me, you're too big to lick— I can't stop you from doin' much anymore." His voice took on a harder edge. "But I ain't havin' it around the kids, I ain't havin' you walk around here hammered out of your mind. You wanna do this shit, you can keep it outside, at the very least."_

" _Sorry, I just— I thought I heard you say you wasn't havin' something around the kids." This laugh was so loud, on the razor edge of hysteria, I was surprised he hadn't woken everyone else up. "I guess they spent enough of their lives in a crank den, huh? They're too good for any more?"_

" _This ain't about college— this was never about your college." Dad sounded terrifyingly calm, even in the face of all this provocation; I heard the pop of a tab, probably a beer can. "Don't give me that shit. What's really wrong with you?"_

" _I know who you are,_ Darrel _, I always knew, even when no one else could admit it." The words lashed right out at him, like the whip they'd used to tear Jesus's back into shreds. "You're the guy who brought thugs into the kitchen whenever Mom turned around. You're the guy who left us for years 'cause you wanted some cheap thrills more than workin' a real job. And, oh yeah, I almost forgot. You're the guy who thought I'd make a great partner-in-crime for the whole fucking thing."_

" _Darry, honey, I can sit here and listen to you call me a lowdown piece of shit all night— I deserve it and worse," Dad said, though I wished he hadn't. I was young enough, and rebellious enough against my mama, that I wanted to fly at Darry with the tips of my nails and not let up. "But the only person you're hurtin' right now is yourself— and you're hurtin' yourself bad."_

 _I hadn't seen Darry cry in years, maybe as long as I could remember— not when Dad had gotten locked up, even, he'd just stared at the phone with a frozen, pleading expression. His entire face crumpled like paper in someone's fist, a strangled sob left his throat. "I shouldn't have ever helped you."_

" _C'mere." He opened his arms up. "C'mere, baby, it's okay."_

 _I couldn't bear to keep looking._

* * *

Nobody spoke, for an agonizingly long few seconds. I considered bolting while the two of them were too busy glaring daggers at each other to notice, but I was too fixated on how the scene would play out to flee. A similar reason had kept me from committing suicide.

"Let me get this straight." Darry pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let me get this _real_ straight. You found out about this, you've known for months now, you even _bailed her out of jail_ , and you didn't think you oughta tell me?"

"You should be thankin' me on your knees," Rose sniffed. "You know how much money I had to put into those cops' hands to get her out of trouble, with your daddy's record? Instead I hear this kind of attitude from both your mouths."

Darry turned to me then swiftly, his fists pressed to the sides of his thighs. "God, did Dallas— did he _threaten_ you? Did he make you do this, run drugs for him? I'll—"

It was an uncanny callback to what Soda had asked me once, if Dally was pimping me for easy cash, and it would've been so simple for me to throw him under the bus right then— he was a dead man, he couldn't possibly defend himself against even the wildest accusations. I could've said anything at all that I wanted, that he'd held a gun up to my head and forced to do his bidding, that he'd somehow hypnotized me into a life of sin and crime, and they would've eaten it up. They'd both projected the worst of my daddy's sins onto him, welcomed the confirmation of their suspicions.

But I still loved him too much for that. A knife in my stomach twisted, remembering my face pressed into his chest, how he said it'd always be me and him _._ I couldn't, that was a line even I couldn't cross.

"Dallas didn't _make_ me do nothin'," I sneered, tossing my hair and deciding to take refuge in audacity. "What do you think he did, put a hand around my throat and squeezed? It just—" My smart attitude wavered the second I reached my justification; I swallowed hard. "It just got a lil' out of control, is all."

Darry's eyes swept over me, swept back to Rose as fast. "Get outta here. Just— _Lord_ , get outta here. You're the last thing I have time for right now."

"Excuse me?" She straightened herself up with all the haughtiness of a queen adjusting her crown. "Last I checked, I still didn't know where my pills were—"

"Go drink mouthwash, then, for all I care." He raised his eyebrow as tauntingly as possible at her. "You ain't her mama, you ain't much of nothin' at all. This is a family conversation."

She stormed straight off the porch, probably to go call her lawyer or her husband or both. Darry steepled his fingers like a school principal before he turned to face me; I wasn't afraid he'd hit me the way he had Ponyboy, not exactly, but it'd been a long time since I'd thought of him as an authority figure. "Think I knew all along," he said, almost too quietly to be heard. "You ain't never around, hangin' with them Shepard kids, comin' home drunk and bruised and high— I knew. Just didn't wanna admit it, the way Mom didn't."

When I opened my mouth again, my voice came out serrated, the edge of a saw. "You gonna lick me, or what?"

He'd certainly threatened it enough times, but I'd never quite considered it a real possibility before today, with the steely, determined way he looked at me. The worst part was, I couldn't even say I wouldn't deserve it, after all the shit I'd pulled.

"No," he said finally. "If I thought that was gonna get through to you, I would've done it a long time ago." He stalked back inside and snatched the keys off the dining room table. "Get in the car."

"Why?"

"To go see Mom and Dad."

* * *

The whole drive there, maybe twenty minutes, I was in too much of a fugue state to protest; it was only when we pulled up to the graveyard that I balked. "Darry—" my throat was full of molten lead— "I can't. We haven't even been here—"

Since the funeral.

"I didn't say you had a choice, did I?" His tone wasn't nearly as harsh as his words. "For once, you're gonna listen to me." He jerked the key out of the ignition; his hand was shaking, and he almost dropped it on the floor. "C'mon."

"I'm not ready," I said like a child before their first day of kindergarten, clinging to the passenger seat like it was my mother's skirt. _I ain't got all day, Jasmine_ , mine had said, never huge on sentiment, a trait Darry inherited from her.

"You're never gonna be ready." He waited for me to unfurl my fingers from the edge, open up the car door, plant the heels of my shoes into the wet, spongey ground. "That's just life. You gotta do a million things you ain't ready for."

The headstones looked a wreck, unnoticed and unseen for nine months; others surrounding them were cleaner, had little flags or bouquets, while ours were ringed by weeds and covered in a thin sheen of dirt and water damage. Mildew was embedded into the words, but I could still make out

DARREL PATRICK CURTIS, 1925—1965

FRANCES ELIZABETH CURTIS, 1926— 1965

 _In my father's house, there are many rooms._

I shivered, though the weather wasn't really cold enough for it, rubbed my upper arms. Who had picked that epitaph, Darry? I supposed he, out of anyone, would've realized that if our parents wanted to go to heaven, it had better have space to spare.

This was supposed to be some meaningful experience, but I was shocked by how little I actually felt, looking at the stones, as though it were a stranger's plot. My parents had fought and drank too much and yelled and loved us fiercely their whole lives, there was nothing left of them in this eerie stillness, in two skeletons buried deep beneath the earth. They didn't have the power to condemn me, they never would again.

I sank to my knees; wet dirt seeped through the fabric of my pants. "Why'd you bring me here?" I croaked. "To tell me that they'd be ashamed?"

"No." He shoved his hands into his pockets and gave the sky the same desperate, pleading look he had the day of the funeral. "I'm fuckin' _scared_ for you. You're gonna end up in a plot next to them, at this rate."

"Darry—" I didn't know what to say to comfort him, unable to speak over the wave of guilt crashing over me.

"I could holler at you— I could whoop your ass and ground you for the rest of your life, that's the least you deserve for somethin' like this. I shouldn't have to tell you that you could've died, or gotten arrested, or—" He let out a short, weak chuckle. "But I sold too, when I was 'bout your age, probably for the same reasons. And I can't forget how much it killed Mom an' Dad to find out what kinda lifestyle they'd brought me into."

I stood up again and kicked at the dirt with the toe of my shoe, something strange and yearning starting at the base of my throat; I could've spoken, but no words seemed adequate. "That's the thing, ain't it? We don't have to be like Dad— hell, even _Dad_ didn't wanna be like Dad. It's not in our genes. You seen enough yet, that you don't want to live the life he did?"

He looked painfully young, and I flung my arms around his neck; I couldn't remember the last time I'd initiated something like this, and he stood stiff for a moment before hugging me back. Had I really been too wrapped up in my own pain to even consider that he might feel it too? "I'm sorry," I said into his sweatshirt, my voice muffled by the thick cloth, "Darry, I'm sorry, I've been so selfish and rude and awful—"

"You're a teenager, you're all awful," he said, not unkindly. "At least you can admit it."

We stood there for a long time.

* * *

Darry had been brave and vulnerable around me, but he wasn't the one I could go to, in the end. The truth pulsed at the walls of my throat, threatened to burst out more strongly than it ever had before; keeping the secret felt like a leaden weight pinning me to the ground, hurting me every time I shifted under. No matter what the consequences of spilling it were, Dallas's death had triggered something dangerous in me; _I never confide in anyone, that's what makes me such a good criminal_ , he'd said just a few weeks ago, and hadn't that been the end of him? Hadn't he been carrying things he couldn't put down?

"I need to talk to you," I announced as I walked into Soda's room and saw him sitting at the desk, I had to say it out loud before I lost my nerve completely and say it in a real confident voice. Like ripping off a bandaid, wasn't it. Like doing something you couldn't take back. "Soda..." I closed my mouth, then opened it again, a terrible anticipation fizzling in my fingertips. I trembled so violently I was afraid I'd have a seizure, fly apart like a piece of faulty machinery. "I need to tell you—"

"Yeah?" he said, his attention still on the GED booklet he was flipping through; I pulled it away from him, bile rising up so powerfully in my throat, I was afraid I'd be sick all over his lap. His whole face morphed when he looked up again. "What, honey?" He took my hand in his much bigger one, the calluses on his palm scraping my skin. "What is it?"

 _You're a whore, Jasmine baby. You shouldn't have been drinking. You shouldn't have gone upstairs with him. You should've screamed, kicked, fought back harder than you did, shouldn't you have? Maybe you should just keep it to yourself, after all. Maybe you had the right idea._

 _He'll never see you the same way again._

"I didn't want to." I sounded like a scared little girl, fourteen again, desperation making my voice crack. "Soda, I didn't wanna, please, if you don't believe me—"

He looked at me and I saw that he understood, he wasn't so naive, at seventeen. He looked at me and he didn't want to understand, but he did, and with his eyes he begged for me to walk this back, not confirm what had really happened to his strange, cruel little sister. I couldn't comfort him, though, I couldn't keep comforting him the way I had for the past nine months. "Honey, of course I'm gonna believe you. What could you possibly say that I wouldn't believe?"

"Somethin' happened back in February." If I stopped now, I'd never be able to bring it up again; I plunged forward like Amundsen into the Arctic snow. "I was at a party, after Mom and Dad died—" I couldn't say it, God, I had to say it, I had to say it, my head bent over the toilet bowl. "I was raped."

* * *

He'd waited patiently for me to finish the halted, painful story, with all the gaps in the middle of it, until I'd reached the conclusion. It still felt like I was talking about someone else, it couldn't possibly have been— "You just stay here, sweetheart," he said, brushing a kiss against the top of my head. "Don't worry about nothin'. It'll be okay, I promise."

"How?" I managed to choke out, fear coating my tongue. His eyes were gleaming feral, his fists clenched so hard his knuckles threatened to burst out of the skin.

"I'm gonna fucking kill him."


End file.
